


You're the Culmination of Everything I've Never Had

by earlgreytea68



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 81,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Patrick Stump led a quiet life. Then a movie star walked into his record store.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 1721
Kudos: 498





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been calling this fic my Notting Hill AU. Spoiler: I've never seen that movie, so this turns out to have almost nothing to do with Notting Hill, oops. A famous movie star meets a humble shop owner in London, and that's where the similarities end. But I kind of love this story very, very much, and I hope that you do, too. 
> 
> Thank you so much to carbonbased000, for looking this over for me and correcting my typos and making sure I get the music right. ;-)
> 
> Title from Letterman by Gay Nineties: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjLNEkHRStE

Patrick Stump leads a very quiet life, and he likes it that way.

“I lead a very quiet life,” he tells Joe, “and I like it that way.”

“Man, I’m telling you, you’ve got to get out more,” says Joe, shaking his head.

“No, I don’t,” says Patrick. “Please stop what you’re doing.” Because Joe is supposed to be arranging the albums at the front of the store but he’s doing a terrible job.

“You never let me pick the albums to highlight in the front window,” Joe complains.

“Because you’re bad at it,” Patrick says, shooing him away from the display.

“You’re mean.”

“I’m your boss. It’s my job to be mean.”

“I don’t think that’s right, but okay.”

“No, it’s right,” says Vicky, from where she’s supposed to be manning the cash register but she’s really flipping through a magazine. “That’s why he gets paid the big bucks: to be mean.”

Patrick doesn’t get paid any big bucks, but he’s not going to argue, because Joe steps away from the window.

And sighs heavily. “You just keep rotating the same five albums.”

“No, I don’t,” Patrick denies. “Anyway, who am I to argue with Ziggy Stardust?” Patrick holds the album up lovingly.

Joe shakes his head. “You’re very sad, bro. You’re a very sad individual.”

“No, I’m not.” Patrick puts the album carefully in the window, regards it affectionately. He’s definitely not sad; Bowie brings him great joy.

The record store brings him great joy. It’s not much, but it’s his. It’s quiet. He likes it. Adventure is seriously overrated.

Outside, a dreary day is fading into a misty twilight, and Patrick Stump has no idea his life is about to change.

He led a very quiet life. He liked it that way.

***

Pete Wentz leads a very noisy life. He’s not sure if he likes it anymore.

“I’m not sure if I like this anymore,” he says. He’s standing in the middle of a busy London street. Well, actually, the London street is completely closed to traffic, because _he’s_ there, or, more accurately, his movie, and they’re supposed to be filming some incredibly complicated single-shot street scene, but the director, who’s a little out of control, is really upset that the leaves in the shot aren’t yellow enough, and a million people are running around trying to find the appropriately colored leaves somewhere in London, and Pete’s spent all day in full make-up waiting for this one shot, and he’s not sure if he likes this anymore.

“Too late,” Andy says, slurping at a cup of tea. Andy has taken to London with relish.

Pete is desperately homesick. This London shoot is dragging on forever. He really just wants a decent piece of pizza.

“You’re a terrible PA,” Pete accuses. “You’re supposed to support me. Also, you didn’t get _me_ a cup of tea.”

“You hate tea,” Andy points out.

“You could have gotten me coffee.”

“I asked if you wanted coffee, and you said, ‘Does this fucking place ever see the fucking sun?’” Andy shrugs. “So I didn’t get you coffee.”

“No, really, you’re the _worst_ ,” Pete says sourly. Someone power-walks by him shouting, “Has anyone seen the special trash pile we’re using?” Pete decides, “I’m going to quit.”

“There’s a contract,” Andy says. “You’d lose a whole lot of money under the contract.”

“I have money,” Pete points out.

“Not enough liquid assets,” Andy replies.

“Suddenly you’re my fucking financial planner?” demands Pete.

“I just pay attention when people tell you things.” _Unlike you_ , is implied.

Pete says, “Right. That’s what I pay you to do. Also, can you get me a cup of coffee?”

“I’m going to start a rumor about how high-maintenance you are,” says Andy as he walks off.

“You already tried that last movie, asshole!” Pete shouts after him.

Several people turn to look at him.

Great, that’s probably going to end up on social media somewhere.

“I said that lovingly,” Pete says. “It was a loving ‘asshole.’ It was like… Thanks for everything you do, my darling asshole!”

Andy sends a middle finger in his direction.

“Asshole,” Pete mutters, and scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn’t actually think Andy’s an asshole. He actually really likes Andy. He’s just tired. He feels it coming on, creeping at the edges of him. He’s been working nonstop, throwing himself into it, keeping himself busy, but that can only go on for so long, and he feels lost in this city, detached from himself, and it’s not good. It’s very not good. He’s not sleeping and that’s not unusual but he’s itchy with it in this strange city whose rhythms feel foreign to him. Homesickness is a tangible weight he’s dragging around with him.

He’s calling it ‘homesickness’ because that seems better than naming it anything else.

Andy comes back with the coffee. They stand around for a while longer. They lose the light. The director rants and raves and says they have to try again tomorrow with the _right leaves_. Bebe, his costar for the film, gives him a wry smile and a shrug and says, “See you tomorrow, Petey.”

Probably Bebe is off to a night on the town. Part of Pete wants to ask if he can tag along, but the thought of it feels exhausting. He doesn’t think he’s going to be able to lose himself in whatever booze he might be able to find, and he doesn’t want to spend a raw night in front of Bebe.

Andy says, as they part ways in the hotel lobby, “You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Pete waves a hand around.

Pete’s not fine.

Pete stands in the middle of his suite and feels the walls closing in on him. He feels like the only person awake in the entire city, even though it’s not late and everyone is awake out there, he can see the cars zipping around. _Everyone’s awake_ , Pete assures himself. _You’re not alone_.

It doesn’t help.

Jittery, he turns around and leaves the room. He steps out onto the busy London sidewalks. It’s drizzling. He pulls his hoodie up over his head and tries to sink into it. He wants to be invisible, and he wants human contact at the same time. He doesn’t know what he wants. He follows the flow of the bustle of the sidewalks mindlessly, until it’s abruptly too much, and then he turns blindly down a side road, and then another side road, and another, until he’s completely lost. He has no idea where he is. And he forgot to bring his fucking cell phone. He literally walked out of the hotel room without his _cell phone_. Andy’s going to kill him when he finds out about this.

It’s much quieter where he is now. There is a single person on the sidewalk, walking away. They stride past him hurriedly, head down against the cold rain, clearly just trying to get things over with. Pete pauses and looks up and down the street. It’s wet and windswept, streetlights gleaming in puddles dotted with leaves the director would have rejected. Upstairs, a few windows have lights on, but they’re muted against shutters and curtains and drawn blinds.

There is, on ground level, one single beacon of light.

Pete heads for it.

The glowing window displays albums: Bowie, The Smiths , Saves the Day. 

Pete smiles. It’s a _record store_. How delightful. He hasn’t been in a record store in ages, not since he let slip in an interview once how much he enjoyed them. Now it’s like every record store in the greater Los Angeles area is staked out by paparazzi hoping to catch sight of Pete Wentz.

Not so in London, though. Tonight he’s been anonymous, as far as he can tell. He looks up and down the dark street and it’s utterly deserted. If a pap is biding their time in the shadows of one of these buildings, well, Pete hopes he gets pneumonia from standing in a puddle.

Pete looks back at the window of the store. Through the window, past the display of albums, in the store itself, there’s a man. Cinnamon hair spiking out dramatically from his forehead. Clad in black skinny jeans, a white shirt, and a tweed vest. With cobalt blue sneakers. The man is stocking the shelves at the back of the store but he’s also dancing, just a little bit, a rhythmic bob of his head, a tempo to the way he slides the albums onto the shelves, the punctuation mark of a twitch of his hips. Whatever he’s listening to, he’s enjoying it.

Pete abruptly wants to be inside this store, with this man, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his _life_. It’s a sure and certain tug. Pete is familiar with siren songs; Pete has a small pharmacy’s worth of siren songs that sit by his bedside in lined-up prescription bottles, beckoning Pete to let them drown out the voices in his head. This is a different sort of siren song altogether. The man in the store two-steps over to a fresh box of records and does a little twirl and Pete swallows reflexively, like letting a pill hit his bloodstream on an empty stomach.

Pete walks into the store.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, this fic has a playlist, it's here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0cRYwCdq43JkL07leXRKBp?si=tr-HnzugQcCvzWKJXcNLgg

It’s the kind of prematurely dark evening that Patrick adores. The record store always empties out early on such a night, everyone preferring to be home in PJs and blankets. Patrick always sends Joe and Vicky home after the initial post-work rush and in the last hour of openness, the store is just Patrick and music, which was why he opened the store in the first place. Sometimes he has to put up with customers in this final hour but on a night like tonight the street is deserted and the record store is Patrick’s own little music box. He puts on _Purple Rain_ , appropriate for the weather this evening, and lets it keep him company while he shelves the latest shipment of acquisitions. Joe and Vicky say he needs to sell more records before he buys more. Fuck Joe and Vicky, is Patrick’s motto.

The door opening puts a halt to his cozy self-indulgence. He tells himself not to frown as he glances over his shoulder toward his customer.

It’s some guy in a hoodie, huddled against the rawness outside, not yet unfurling into the heat of the store.

Patrick decides to try to be a good record store proprietor. “Can I help you find something?”

There’s a pause, and then the man replies, “No, can I just look around?”

American, Patrick notes absently. And also Patrick’s favorite kind of customer: one he can ignore. “Knock yourself out,” Patrick says, and turns back to his lovely new treasure chest of a box of records.

The man drifts over to the other side of the store and starts browsing through the albums. He’s gentle, his movements soft and reverent, and Patrick maybe was annoyed at being disturbed but now the quiet company in the store with him is kind of nice. Patrick feels hyper-aware of the measure of the guy’s breaths, of the tiny thud sound of albums landing against each other, of the whisper of the tread of his sneakers as he moves along. Patrick keeps shelving the new albums, all the while with the hair on the back of his neck prickling with awareness. Not a bad awareness, either. A good awareness. It’s kind of been a while since Patrick experienced good awareness.

He sneaks a glance over at the guy, who still has his hood up over his head but appears completely absorbed in the albums. He’s got a small pile by his feet, and one in his hands that he’s lingering over, fingers drifting over the cover art. The fact that he’s still huddled in his hoodie is somewhat alarming – is he trying to avoid identification later because he’s about to rob Patrick’s store? – but he’s so careful with the records that Patrick feels like he’d almost be okay with being robbed if the records went to such a good home.

When Patrick gets to the bottom of the new box, his shelving done for the night, he looks at his watch and is startled to find it’s an entire hour past closing. Oops.

He looks back over at the customer, who’s leaning against the wall, absorbed in liner notes. He took his hood off at some point, so now Patrick can see that he’s got jet-black hair, tousled all over his head. He’s also got a thoughtful little pout as he peruses the album. Patrick finds himself staring at the curve of his mouth. It’s a very pretty mouth. He probably shouldn’t be staring at his customer’s mouth. He should probably not be a perv about his customer.

Patrick walks over to him. He hates to disturb him but also, he’s already stayed open a whole extra hour because of how irresistibly intimate this evening had felt. “Hey,” he says, and he’s trying to be soft but it’s so quiet in the store that it sounds loud. The record ended a while ago, it’s just been their intermingled breathing for a long time.

The customer looks up, startled, looking wary. He has a pair of amber eyes, brown and gold, warm and pretty. Patrick can’t help but think again that this customer is very, very attractive. “Yeah?” he says.

“I’m sorry to do this,” Patrick begins.

“No, no.” The man sighs as he straightens. “It’s no problem. I’m happy to do it.”

Which is a weird turn of phrase, Patrick thinks, but whatever. “I know it’s a gross night outside, but I’ve got to close up sooner or later, right?” Patrick sends him a smile and points at the pile of albums at his feet. “Can I ring those up for you?” He tries not to sound too hopeful.

The customer looks at him uncomprehendingly. “Huh?”

“Before I close,” Patrick offers, resigned to the fact that this guy was probably just killing some time out of the cold and doesn’t want to buy anything. “Do you want to buy anything?”

“You’re closing.” The customer glances around the shop. “Oh. Right. You’re closing. You’re... You just want me to buy my stuff?”

“I mean,” says Patrick, “I’m not going to force you to buy anything if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, I really want to buy all of this.” He leans down to start gathering together his albums.

Patrick leans down to help him, their fingers brushing, and Patrick tries not to behave like a stupid teenager who can’t handle innocently touching a hot guy.

“Thanks,” the customer says, “you don’t have to—"

“No, no, my pleasure,” Patrick says, and tries not to say that this is more than any customer’s bought in...maybe the record store’s entire existence.

They carry the albums over to the cash register and Patrick starts scanning them in. The customer is watching him curiously, his gaze so warm and _golden_. The hair on the back of Patrick’s neck is still prickling in awareness. His dick would like to prickle in awareness, too, but Patrick’s not letting it get involved. _Yeah, sure, it’s a hot guy, cool, dick, thanks for letting me know, we’ll have a wank later_ , Patrick tells it firmly, and then, because it’s weird that he’s standing here thinking about his dick and this guy, he says, “Good choices.”

The customer laughs, a startled, punched-out giggle. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

Is he...flirting with him? Patrick tries to look up at him through his eyelashes, surreptitiously, feeling him out. “No, no, only the ones who pull Glenn Danzig.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s a good choice. Makes up for also pulling the Metallica album.” Patrick glances up to catch the customer’s grin. Pretty, pretty smile. Wow, he’s fucking...a thousand megawatts, thinks Patrick, and tries to focus on checking him out. No, not checking him out. No, no. Definitely not that. Scanning the albums in. That’s what he’s doing.

“I like your shop,” the customer says. “It’s really nice. You’ve got a great selection.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says. “I’m working on it. Haven’t been here long, but I think it’s going well.”

“A little off the beaten path. I’m glad I wandered by.”

“Yeah, you don’t sound like you’re from around here,” Patrick points out jovially.

“Yeah, neither do you,” the customer rejoins, handing across his credit card.

Patrick smiles as he runs it. “I’m a transplant. Chicago.”

“Me, too!” the customer says, lighting up. “No way! What are the odds? Come all the way to London to meet a fellow Chicagoan!”

“Hmm,” says Patrick in mock suspicion, as he tucks the albums into some of the paper bags Vicky brings in for the customers. “I don’t believe you.”

“You think I would lie? For what purpose? To get into your pants?”

It’s an outrageous thing to say. Patrick’s heart clambers up to his throat and down to his dick simultaneously. It’s a lot. He says as casually as possible, handing the bag across, “I mean, that would be optimistic of you.”

The customer’s eyes are steady on his, dark gold glitter. “Would it?” he asks lightly. He takes the bag. He says, “I’m from Wilmette.”

Patrick says, “Hey, do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?”


	3. Chapter 3

Pete can’t remember the last time he spent this long undisturbed. No one bothers him, no one calls his name or tells him where to be or what to do or asks for an autograph or a selfie. He just flips through albums in relative silence. Across the store, the cute guy keeps shelving records, keeps the beat of the Prince album they’re listening to, sings along under his breath. He’s got a gorgeous voice. Pete quirks a smile at himself. And a gorgeous ass. Pete can’t remember the last time he was able to just ogle a cute guy’s ass without worrying it was going to end up gif’d on Tumblr.

Pete can’t remember the last time he just _breathed_ like this. He goes back to the albums, and the guy keeps humming along, and it’s the nicest evening Pete’s spent in a really long time. There’s no photographers, no social media, no fake laughter and determined wheedling, no fucking wining-and-dining-with-an-offer-for-sixty-nining-thrown-in. Nor is he all alone in some cold, antiseptic residence somewhere, pretending it’s a home when it’s just four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. He’s in this warm, secret-seeming space, wrapped in music, with another human just sharing air with him. Breathing the same oxygen, but otherwise demanding nothing of him. It’s so... _nice_.

It’s so nice he forgets to be careful, shrugs off his hood as he gets lost in the albums, and when the cute guy comes over to talk to him, he feels the tension come back, braced for a public encounter, for having to be Pete Wentz.

And instead the guy just says he’s closing up and does Pete want to buy anything?

Pete wants to buy the albums. The guy helps him gather them up. Their fingers brush and it’s like being plugged in, how quickly and thoroughly Pete feels like he comes _alive_. This has really been the _best_ night. The gorgeous guy with the gorgeous ass has gorgeous eyes, and a gorgeous smile, and Pete flirts with him, a little, just to see. He’s got a gorgeous blush, too.

And Pete is convinced— _convinced—_ he has no idea who Pete is. He could be faking it, but the guy deserves an Oscar if he is. Pete will present it himself. He just doesn’t want the night to end.

But he can’t get coffee with this guy. Fucking goddammit. He’ll be recognized if they go out, it will be inevitable, and then everything will be different, the way everything is always different.

He says, “Um,” scrubbing a nervous hand through his messy hair, eyes darting to the darkness outside the door.

“We don’t have to go out in the rain. I live above the shop.”

Pete looks back to the cute guy, who’s blushing deeply now.

“I mean,” he goes on, “I know that sounds very forward. But the nearest coffee shop is a bit of a walk, and there’s coffee upstairs… Is this too forward?”

“Too forward?” Pete echoes, staring. He’s got a couple of inches on the record store dude, which is highly unusual for Pete. The most common thing people exclaim upon meeting him is _I thought you’d be taller!_ But this guy is the perfect height for him, they’re nicely matched, he’d look so very pretty next to Pete, in any position.

“Yeah, you know…” The guy makes an awkward gesture. “Forward?” He looks at Pete uncertainly, his teeth caught in that blowjob bottom lip of his.

It’s both too adorable and too hot. Pete thinks, _Fuck_. Pete says, “‘Forward.’ You’ve been living in London too long. Why, no, Miss Bennet, it’s not too forward, I think we can go up for coffee without a chaperone.”

“Funny,” says the guy, deadpan but with amusement in his blue-green eyes. “You’re hilarious.”

“Just doubting your Chicago credentials. Is that how you used to roll on the streets of our city?”

He smiles a sarcastic smile, and Pete would like to taste the inside of it, thank you very much. “Oh, yeah, I bet you were all kinds of edge on the mean streets of Wilmette.”

“I was known for being too forward,” Pete parries. He feels a little drunk on this guy, half in love with him, with the way he mocks and jabs and flirts with his teeth, with the blush on his cheeks, with that taunting mouth and those bright, beckoning eyes.

“Let me tell you how forward we were down in Evanston,” the guy replies.

“By all means,” Pete says, leaning on the counter. His albums are sitting in a bag by his feet, completely forgotten.

The man flashes a grin, wicked and reckless, and leans close to him, so close their noses almost touch, so close Pete has to work to keep him in focus. And he murmurs, “Do you want to come upstairs for coffee and mutual blowjobs?”

Pete stays upright mostly because he’s leaning on the counter. He’s so hard so fast he’s dizzy with it, makes an involuntary gasp for breath, and the smug, sexy asshole opposite him smirks at him. Pete manages, “Oh, wow, fuck, I should have spent more time in Evanston.”

“What passes for forward in Wilmette?” asks this utter astonishment in the form of a record store worker.

And Pete has to up the ante, right? Pete closes a hand into his collar and tugs him into a kiss.

And that’s… That’s…

The cute guy kisses him back, without hesitation, _kisses him_ , and Pete, well, he can’t remember the last time someone kissed _him_ and not the movie star, he can’t remember the last time someone pushed _him_ against a wall, he can’t remember the last time someone spread _him_ out on a bed.

Pete wants to remember everything about this but it’s happening in flashes, moments of illumination: staggering upstairs while shedding his hoodie, stumbling through a door while he gets the guy out of his vest, tripping into furniture because nothing is as important as the way he’s being kissed. He tries desperately to kiss this guy with the astonishing hunger with which this guy kisses him, and it’s like he can’t remember, can’t remember what it feels like to kiss someone _for real_ , instead of for a camera, video- or paparazzi. He feels clumsy with it, uncoordinated, like this is the first kiss of his entire life, like he barely knows what to do with his tongue or his teeth, that he just _wants_ , and luckily this guy is willing to just let him _take_.

They fall onto a bed tangled together, Pete landing on top, pulling his t-shirt up over his head as he straddles the astonishing cute record store guy who kisses him like he’s a stranger.

The guy says breathlessly, “ _Oh_. You have tattoos,” and reaches his index finger out to trace very softly along the necklace of thorns ringing Pete’s neck.

Pete takes a shaky breath, which is so stupid, he doesn’t get shaky when starlets literally swallow his dick down. But here is this record store guy who doesn’t know his tattoos. When there are charts of them online, interpretations that run for thousands of words, and this fucking guy is _surprised_ by them.

“I have tattoos,” Pete confirms. “Is that a good thing?”

“It appears to be,” says the guy thoughtfully, and presses a hand flat on Pete’s sternum.

Pete huffs out a laugh and tries to grab at the vestiges of Pete Wentz, whose entire life is a series of fucking one-night stands, what is _wrong_ with him. He says, “What are you hiding under your shirt?” and tries to tackle its buttons.

The guy drifts his hands down to Pete’s hips, dips under the waistband of his jeans, and Pete’s eyes flutter closed.

“I’m hiding how little I work out,” the guy says wryly, and walks his fingers up over Pete’s abdomen. “Look at you,” he murmurs, like Pete’s amazing, and people… people never mean _Pete_ when they say that.

“I’m not,” Pete gasps, and doesn’t know what else to say. He’s nothing special, it’s all smoke and mirrors. He tries to get back to the guy’s shirt but his fingers won’t work right, the buttons are impossible. He feels frustrated with himself, that he can’t just be who he fucking _is_ , he should be rocking this guy’s fucking world and he can’t even get this shirt off. “You’ve got all these fucking buttons, like, what the fuck, I’m going to just leave your shirt on, actually, now I really want to blow you with your shirt on, can I destroy your shirt?” He gives the guy a look he hopes is sexy, hopes is making Pete’s incompetence hot.

The guy says, “I mean,” and shifts under Pete in a _really good_ way. “You can do whatever the fuck you want, I think.”

Pete leans down. Pete purrs, “Dangerous, Evanston.” And the thing is: he means giving him carte blanche here. Or he wants to mean that.

But the guy opens his eyes and looks at him and they’re very close, they’re so close that even though it’s dark in the room, headlights slide over his face and pick out how dark and wide his pupils are, and Pete stops breathing. _Dangerous_ , he thinks.

“Fuck,” he says thickly, and then the guy pulls him in with a hand on the back of his neck, into a kiss that’s dizzying and deep, and Pete finds himself on his back, Pete finds himself being ravished, the guy’s reddish head moving down his chest, his lips and teeth and tongue dragging over Pete’s topography. Pete closes his hands into that hair, closes his eyes, thinks, _dangerous, dangerous, dangerous_ , as this random guy in this random record store on a random street in London takes him apart. The famous Pete Wentz, entirely undone.

Pete doesn’t know what he says when he comes, but he thinks afterward that it might be _please_ , because the first thing he says to the guy, licking come off his chest in the aftermath, is, “Thank you.”

Like an idiot.

The guy flashes him a grin and takes a breath to say something, but Pete doesn’t let him. Pete flips him onto his back and kisses him, kisses the taste of him in his mouth. He makes a noise Pete can’t really interpret, scrunches his hands through Pete’s hair, and watches, eyes gleaming in the city-darkness in the room, as Pete goes down on him. Pete, who’s known his way around a dick or two in his life, but _this_ one, the way this guy goes slack-jawed with pleasure, the way his eyes unfocus, the way he twists his hands into the covers and twitches his hips and gasps _oh_ and _fuck_ and _yes_ and _like that_ and _more_ and, finally, _please_.

The guy’s shirt catches a lot of the come, absolutely destroyed the way Pete predicted, and he’s regarding it ruefully when the guy says softly, “Hey.” 

Pete looks at him.

He’s got obscene lips, this guy, but right now there’s a gentle smile playing around them and Pete doesn’t think about how they were just wrapped around his dick, he thinks of the way they kissed him. The guy smooths a hand over Pete’s hair, which must be a mess, and says, “Thank you.”

And he doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of him.

Pete pushes the wrecked shirt out of his way so he can press a kiss to the middle of this guy’s chest because otherwise he’s going to do something even more embarrassing.

Then he rolls off him and sprawls on the bed next to him and, instead of enjoying his afterglow, frets that this guy is about to tell him to button his jeans and get out of there.

The guy doesn’t say that. The guy says carefully, “So, like, I don’t know the rules…”

Pete looks up at the ceiling. “Rules?” He has no idea what this guy is talking about.

“My name’s Patrick,” says the guy.

Pete, surprised, turns his head to look at him. _Patrick_. “Patrick,” he repeats.

“Yeah,” says Patrick.

Pete irresistibly reaches his thumb out to brush Patrick’s bottom lip, shifts to trace his index finger down Patrick’s nose. _Dangerous_ , he thinks. “Hi, Patrick,” he says, and smiles. He can’t remember the last time he had to do this. He opens his mouth and he says, “I’m Pete.”


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick doesn’t know the rules. Patrick doesn’t do these things. Patrick has never sucked the dick of a guy whose name he didn’t know. Patrick’s led a really boring life. Whatever.

What he does know is he’s got the hottest guy he’s ever seen in real life in his bed right at that moment, and he just gave him an orgasm good enough that he got thanked for it, so, like, Patrick’s riding a bit of a high.

He says, “I’m starving. Are you hungry?”

Pete looks amused. “I could eat.”

Patrick sits up and pulls his filthy shirt off, then goes hunting for a t-shirt to replace it. He’s riding a high, but not _that_ much of a high, he’s not just going to walk around shirtless in front of the guy with the tattoos and abs. It’s just enough of a high for him to say, “I’ll make us something.” Like he’s a person who cooks.

But he wants to cook for Pete. He wants to keep being this impressive person who uses a smooth line on a guy like Pete and gets him to bed and gives him amazing head. Unfortunately, his refrigerator is basically empty.

Patrick glances over his shoulder at Pete. He’s done his jeans up but he’s still shirtless, as he wanders over to the kitchen table. He’s looking curiously at the apartment, and Patrick tries not to be self-conscious about it. It’s just one room, big enough to fit the bed and the kitchen and an eating area and a sitting area, but small enough that everything about it can be taken in at one glance. Its windows face the street, and headlights keep passing through the room, casting everything into weird shadows, as does the kitchen light Patrick throws on.

Patrick says, “Um,” and turns back to his refrigerator in dismay. There’s milk. It’s not expired. “What about Lucky Charms?” he asks.

Pete lights up. “Dude, _yes_ , I want Lucky Charms, one hundred percent.” He looks way more excited than he needs to be about Lucky Charms.

Patrick remarks as he puts the box down in front of him and reaches for a bowl, “I haven’t seen you this excited yet tonight, and I’ve had your dick in my mouth.”

Pete laughs. “Okay, so, like, my hierarchy goes blowjobs, then Lucky Charms.”

“Does it really?” Patrick finds a spoon for him.

“No. Well.” Pete shakes cereal into his bowl. “Maybe. Kind of. I’ve been on a strict diet recently.”

“Yeah, that is not surprising,” remarks Patrick, since Pete is in the sort of shape Patrick didn’t think real humans were in.

Pete is already happily munching on his Lucky Charms. He says, “So you play the guitar?”

Patrick, as he sits to eat his own bowl, glances over his shoulder at the guitar on its stand. “Yeah.”

“Of course you do. You own a record store and you sing like an angel, of course you also play the guitar.”

Patrick pauses with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean, ‘I sing like an angel’?”

Pete shrugs. “You’ve got an incredible voice.”

“What? No, I don’t. Hang on. How do you know anything about my voice?”

Pete slants him a look. “The same way I know your checking account balance, how you like your coffee, and that adorable freckle just above your dick: from stalking you.”

Patrick freezes. He stares at Pete. He contemplates every moment when he thought maybe he was being watched, even though he didn’t see anyone.

Pete starts laughing, a loud, braying, throw-back-your-head laugh. Like he’s _hilarious_.

“You _asshole_ ,” Patrick says, and flings a guitar pick at him, because there’s one on the table and it’s convenient. “That wasn’t funny.”

Pete clearly still thinks it’s very funny, snorting and trying to catch his breath. Patrick is trying to convince himself it isn’t appealing, this paroxysm of joy. “I’m joking,” he gasps around his laughter. “I’m not stalking you. I don’t know about your bank accounts or your coffee. Although I’m telling the truth about that freckle, it’s a lovely little landmark for directions, it’s like, ‘Second freckle on the left, suck directly below.’”

“I’m hoping you could figure out where to suck without directions to my _freckle_ ,” grumbles Patrick into his cereal.

Pete is grinning at him, wide and irresistible, like Patrick isn’t fooling him for a second and he knows how helplessly charmed Patrick feels by everything Pete _is_. He says, “You were singing in the record store tonight.”

Patrick frowns, thinking. “When?”

“Basically the whole time. You were singing along with the record.”

“I don’t think I was,” Patrick says, confused.

“You definitely were.”

“I don’t really sing. I mean. Not really.”

Pete gives him a look. “Patrick,” he says.

“Look, you’re not trustworthy, you just lied to me about stalking me.”

“I did. I’m a horrible person. You probably shouldn’t play me a song on your guitar sexily.”

“I’m not going to,” Patrick says primly.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t. You probably shouldn’t sing along with your beautiful angel voice.”

“Yeah, I’m _not_ ,” says Patrick.

“And you shouldn’t make intense eye contact with me as you sing me very emotional lyrics, like, these are all things you shouldn’t do.”

“Good,” says Patrick. “Because I’m not doing them.”

Pete looks at him with fucking puppy-dog eyes. His eyes are really pretty and really annoying.

“Fuck you,” sighs Patrick.

And this is how he finds himself strumming his guitar and thinking about what to play.

Pete is cross-legged on the floor in front of him, like this is story time at the local library. He looks eagerly interested in whatever Patrick’s about to do. Patrick is inevitably going to be disappointing. Patrick doesn’t understand how this incredibly hot guy who can pull much better than Patrick is still in this _room_.

Patrick says, “What do you want to hear?”

“Wonderwall,” says Pete.

“Really?” asks Patrick skeptically.

“No,” says Pete. “That was a joke. You don’t think I’m funny and it’s really sad because I am _hilarious_.”

Patrick maintains the skepticism in his tone, adds a dubiously raised eyebrow. “Are you?”

“Someday, Evanston, I am going to make you laugh and on that day, you shall be mine,” proclaims Pete.

Patrick concentrates overly hard on tuning the guitar and not on all the implications wrapped up in that sentence, about a hazy future where Pete’s still around and Patrick is _his_. Pete, Patrick can already tell in their limited acquaintance, is prone to grand proclamations only very loosely connected to anything that could be called _truth_.

So Patrick strums a chord and hums absently and tries not to _think_.

Pete says abruptly, “For a little while, I was going to be in a band. Like, when I was a teenager, I was convinced it was my ticket to fame and fortune.”

Patrick looks at him. He’s impossibly beautiful in the low light, the expression on his face thoughtful. “Yeah? What happened?”

“I realized that I can’t sing. And I could barely play bass. And I couldn’t find the right band. So I got bored and I moved on. What about you?”

Patrick shrugs. “Not good enough for fame and fortune.”

“Do you do that a lot?” Pete asks frankly.

“Do what?”

“Sell yourself short.”

“No,” says Patrick. “But I like to tell the truth, a concept you seem only loosely acquainted with.”

Pete’s smile twists in a self-deprecating way. “It’s true, I mostly live in fictional worlds. The real world isn’t usually as great as it is right now. The real world isn’t usually a hot redhead named Patrick who’s going to sing sexily to me.”

“That still isn’t the real world,” Patrick points out. “You’re living in a fictional world where I have an incredible voice. And my hair isn’t really red.”

Pete snorts. “Babe, I’ve seen the carpet, let’s move on.”

Patrick frowns and, just to end this ridiculous conversation, strikes a chord and sings, “I’ve been really trying.”

And Pete’s jaw literally drops open.

Patrick sings his way through a verse and a refrain of “Let’s Get It On,” and Pete closes his eyes and listens in what looks like rapture, and Patrick is bewildered. He stops singing abruptly, uncertain, and says awkwardly, “So that’s—”

Pete surges forward, taking Patrick by surprise, pulling the guitar out of his hands. “Get this fucking guitar out of my fucking way,” he snarls, and sinks between Patrick’s legs and mouths at him through his boxers.

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick says eloquently, trying to keep up with the onslaught of feedback he’s getting from his dick about how it’s pleased Patrick decided to get it this level of attention twice in one night.

Pete puts the guitar down with a gentleness that surprises Patrick, before leaning up to kiss him fiercely, biting into his mouth, filthy and wet. “That,” Pete pants, “was the hottest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.”

“What—” Patrick starts, because that can’t possibly true, Pete looks like _Pete_ , and Patrick just sang a song at him very badly.

“I’m going to make you come so hard you see fucking _stars_ ,” Pete promises darkly, “and then you’re going to sing the rest of that song to me, and then I’m going to do it again.”

“Wow, you have…” Patrick loses his breath, loses his train of thought, as Pete tugs him off the chair and spreads him out on the floor, single-minded. It’s hot. That look on his face is very hot. He disappears down Patrick’s body and Patrick closes his eyes and hears himself say thickly, “Fuck, this fictional world you’ve got going on, let’s live in it forever.”

Patrick can’t believe he said that. And for a second he doesn’t think Pete will hear it, because Pete’s _very_ preoccupied.

But then Pete says, “Deal.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THE AMAZING MOODBOARD PHOTO COLLAGE CARBONBASED000 MADE ME FOR THIS FIC, I AM FREAKING OUT, I LOVE IT SO MUCH, THANK YOU, CARBON!!!

Pete has spent a large chunk of his life trying to find an artificial high that approximates the way he’s feeling right now, and nothing has ever come close. It’s so starkly obvious now that he feels _this way_ , that it would be impossible for any pill to approximate this. How can you approximate the utter delighting randomness of meeting someone like _Patrick_ , of being curled under covers in his bed, while it’s still raining outside and you’re warm and cozy and his mouth is delicious and he’s letting you kiss it lazily and pet at his hip and there were orgasms so recent your blood is still buzzing, like, there is no chemical equation that can be the equivalent of _this_.

They should probably be going to sleep. Or Pete should be leaving. It’s late, and there has been much sex, but Pete doesn’t want to sleep and he doesn’t want to leave. Patrick doesn’t seem inclined to ask him to leave. Patrick might fall asleep, except Pete is determined not to let him. Pete is trying to outrun sunrise here, when the rest of the world is going to come rushing back in and he has to be Pete Wentz, Movie Star, expected early on-set.

Pete says between kisses, “Hey. So,” and then draws back to nuzzle a bit under Patrick’s chin. His stubble (red) is a pleasant scratch. He smells more like sex and sweat than anything else, but Pete’s not going to complain about that. “Tell me what kind of music’s your favorite.”

“All music,” Patrick answers.

Pete huffs amused laughter into Patrick’s throat.

“What?” Patrick asks, sounding affronted.

“Nothing, that’s just…predictable.” Pete licks over Patrick’s pulse point. “I should have predicted. Your record store’s eclectic.”

“It’s fucking boring to like only one thing,” Patrick declares defensively.

“Hey, I agree.” Pete draws back so he can see Patrick, settles on the pillow across from him. “The world’s full of too much. I’m really bad at just…doing one thing.”

“Yeah? What kinds of things do you do?”

Nothing Pete wants to admit to, because as soon as he says what he does everything about this changes and he knows it. “Mostly,” says Pete, “too much talking. I’m told I could keep my mouth shut more.”

“Oh, wow,” says Patrick, smirking, “I super disagree with that.”

Pete laughs. Patrick is… Patrick is a joy, the way he’s so obviously sweet and kind and also streaked through with a sour stubbornness and a wry wickedness. Pete doesn’t meet people like Patrick, Pete doesn’t meet people who are _full people_. He feels silly, but he’s trying to outrun sunrise, and this is all going to go away, and so he might as well say it. “Can I just say…” He pets a hand gently over Patrick’s tousled hair. “You’re lovely.” Patrick blinks at him in obvious surprise but doesn’t protest. “You’re just…” Pete skims his fingers over the shell of Patrick’s ear, trying to memorize him. “I don’t meet people who…” Pete splays his hand along the back of Patrick’s neck, takes a deep shaky breath, gives up on explaining. “You’re just lovely.”

Patrick looks at him, dark and silent for a moment, before whispering, “You need to get out more.”

Pete laughs a little. “You’re not wrong,” he whispers back.

Silence falls.

“Hey,” Patrick ventures awkwardly, “do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” asks Pete, distracted by the freckles on Patrick’s shoulder, connecting them in a constellation with his fingertips.

“Why you’re so sad,” says Patrick.

Pete looks at him, startled. Because Pete doesn’t… Pete doesn’t frame it that way. Pete doesn’t say, _I am sad_. Pete thinks a lot of different things but not…not exactly that. Pete swallows thickly. Pete looks at Patrick, so beautiful, so open, so _lovely_. He thinks, _Not now_. He says, “No.”

“Okay,” says Patrick simply. “What kind of music did your band play?”

Pete is so grateful for that easy subject change that he could cry with it. He pulls his hand back from wandering over Patrick and says, “Punk rock mostly.”

Patrick laughs.

“Oh, wow,” says Pete, “for once that wasn’t a joke, you weren’t supposed to laugh at that.”

“No, no,” Patrick says, “it’s not—I didn’t mean—it’s just—Punk rock. I don’t know. Of course it was punk rock. I should have known. And I barely know you at all and I still should have known.”

_You know me better than most people_ , Pete thinks, but that sounds like another sad thing, and he doesn’t want to talk about sadness. So he says instead, “Well, what kind of music do you play, you unforgivable snob?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s kind of like…” Patrick makes an expression that Pete thinks is supposed to mean _all over the place_. “Originally I was a drummer, so I did play some punk, actually.”

“A drummer. Where’d the guitar come in?”

“Well, that was like… At some point I realized it would be easier to compose songs playing a guitar than the drums.” Patrick says it carefully.

Pete says gleefully, “Hang on, you write songs?”

“See, I knew you were going to react like that, and I am _not_ getting out of this bed to sing you any songs, okay?”

Pete for once agrees. It’s very warm and cozy in this bed and he doesn’t want either of them to ever leave it. “You can do it later,” he says, “tell me about your songs.”

“What’s there to tell? It’s a thing I do. Do you write songs?”

“No, that’s not my thing. I love music so much, but my mind doesn’t think that way. Words are more my thing.”

“You’re a writer?” asks Patrick.

Pete considers, decides, “If the definition of ‘writer’ is ‘person who writes,’ then yes.”

“Cool. What do you write?”

“Poetry, mostly. Very ridiculous poetry.”

“Lyrics,” says Patrick, smiling. “You write lyrics.”

“Maybe. You want some?”

“Maybe,” parries Patrick. “If you sing them for me.”

“No, no, _I_ don’t sing, _you_ sing,” Pete reminds him.

“You’re delusional,” Patrick tells him. “I mean, I’m not entirely complaining, I’m benefitting from these delusions.”

“What if I’m not real?” Pete asks suddenly.

Patrick lifts an eyebrow. “What, like you’re a wish I made one time that came true?”

“No, like _this_ is the delusion, _I’m_ the delusion, and I don’t really exist.”

“This,” says Patrick slowly, watching him closely, “would be a really nice hallucination to have.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, “it’s like a… It’s like a fictional world. I’m always just…” Pete shakes his head, frustrated with himself. “God, I’m ridiculous, ignore me, just ignore me. I’m just overtired.”

“Yeah, it’s late,” Patrick agrees. “We should go to sleep.”

_I don’t sleep_ , Pete wants to say, but that’s another broken thing to say, goddammit, why can’t he be as lovely and charming and perfect as Patrick is, he’s such a fucking loser. He says, “Yeah, yeah, let’s sleep.”

Patrick looks at him suspiciously for a second, but then closes his eyes. Pete watches his breaths even out into sleep, and then watches him longer.


	6. Chapter 6

When Patrick wakes up, he’s honestly surprised Pete is still in the bed next to him. Patrick had been sure that Pete was preparing to slip out as soon as Patrick was asleep, with all that talk about being a delusion who wasn’t real. Patrick had been sure he was going to wake up and be left with the impression that he had just had a really incredible dream.

But no: There is Pete, as impossibly handsome in the daylight spilling through the windows as he had been in the headlights the night before.

He’s facing Patrick, curled up, dark eyelashes fanned out against his cheeks, mouth gently parted as he takes deep even breaths. Patrick looks at him and thinks, _How the fuck…?_ He considers waking him, then decides it will be gentler to let him wake up naturally while Patrick’s in the shower, so he can creep away if he still wants to. Maybe, after all, he fell asleep accidentally.

So Patrick takes a shower. Well. He stands staring out the tiny window in his shower, unseeing, thinking about how he was supposed to stay late to stock new inventory and close the shop and instead he…met someone. Maybe he met someone. Maybe this is… Maybe this is a _thing_.

Patrick snorts and shakes his head at himself. Now who’s delusional? He washes all of the sex off of him and thinks, _It’s not a thing. Guys like that don’t date guys like you_. Patrick puts on his usual work outfit—jeans, button-down, vest—and gets ready to go back to real life.

Pete’s still sound asleep in his bed. He’s sprawled out now, diagonal across the mattress, colonizing Patrick’s pillow. And he’s snoring.

Patrick looks down at him, confused. He really expected not to have to talk to him again. He doesn’t know what to say. Keeping an eye on him, he makes a pot of coffee. Pete sleeps on. Patrick makes himself a cup, fills it with cream, oversugars it. Looks back at Pete, still sleeping.

Fucking hell, Patrick thinks. _Could_ this be a thing?

Patrick checks his watch. It’s time to open the store. He bites his lower lip and springs into action quickly, before he can think himself out of it. He fills a mug with coffee. He leaves it on the bedside table next to Pete. He leaves a fucking _note_.

And then he walks out of his apartment and closes the door and tries not to think about the hot guy asleep in his bed.

He opens the store. He tries to distract himself with choosing a record to put on but he thinks of Pete saying he sings along. Does he do that? The idea preoccupies him so much that he’s still sitting there staring at the record player in thought when Vicky says, “Whose records are these?”

Patrick jumps, startled, and says, “Jesus, don’t sneak up like that.”

Vicky lifts an eyebrow. “I came in and said good morning, you just didn’t hear me. What are these?” Vicky’s toe nudges at the bag of Pete’s records, completely forgotten by the counter the night before, as she walks around to turn the register on. The register Patrick never shut off, oops. Vicky remarks, “You left this on all night?” And then shrugs. “Should I put those records away?” She gestures toward the bag.

“No,” Patrick says. “They were… I had a customer last night who bought them.”

“And left them?” Vicky looks like he’s not making any sense.

“Yeah, he… It was raining. I mean.” Patrick doesn’t even know why he’s lying. Pete is probably going to end up coming through the store when he wakes up. Why doesn’t he just say, _I took the customer home last night_.

“So he’s coming back for them?” Vicky asks, picking the bag up and tucking it behind the counter. “I’ll just put them back here. He bought a lot, huh? Good, you kind of needed that, right?”

“Yeah,” says Patrick faintly. “I kind of needed it.”

Vicky gives him a funny look. “You okay today? You seem…” Her eyes flicker over him. “Hmm.”

Patrick self-consciously turns back to the record player. It’s not like he’s wearing a sign that says _Last night I had sex_ , so surely Vicky can’t tell. He picks a record at random to play and says, “Hey, do I sing?”

Vicky’s settled behind the register, flipping through a magazine. “Oh, God, yeah, all the time, you never stop.”

Patrick puts the needle on the record and says, “Huh.”

***

Pete wakes up disoriented. Which is how he usually wakes up. He never really knows where he is, he hops around too much.

But when he opens his eyes, he’s clearly not in a hotel room, and then he sits up abruptly. _Patrick_ , he realizes. Patrick is not in this room – that is evident by a quick glance – but this is Patrick’s house. Patrick just left him alone in his house.

With a cup of coffee. Pete looks at it blankly, before picking it up for lack of anything better to do. There’s a note next to it. _I don’t stalk you, so I don’t know how you take your coffee_. Pete experiences something he thinks is the opposite of a panic attack but has the same effect: a rush so acute that he can’t breathe for a moment.

And then he looks at the clock next to the note.

“Motherfucker,” he says feelingly. Maybe that’s not the actual time. Maybe Patrick’s bedside clock is a liar. In which case Patrick’s stove and microwave are also liars, as they both say the same time. And Pete doesn’t have his cell phone.

Andy is going to fucking kill him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says, practically falling out of bed in his haste. It’s a good thing Patrick’s not there to see how idiotically he’s behaving. God, he’s gross, he’s so disgusting, he needs a shower so badly, but he can’t afford to waste time showering, also he can’t find his t-shirt in the piles of Patrick’s clothes on the floor, god-fucking-dammit, did he have to be showy and throw it last night? He decides to steal one of Patrick’s that smells reasonably clean because he’s in too much of a rush. And then he finger-combs his hair hastily. Fuck, he’s going to be recognized as soon as he steps outside and this is how he looks, what a mess, why is he such a goddamn disaster _all the time_.

He stands by the bed for a second of self-loathing, then rests his eyes on Patrick’s note, reaches out and snags it, tucks it into his pocket.

Pete jogs his way down the stairs, trying to plan what he’s going to say to Patrick, how he’s going to explain all of this. What he wants to say is _Run away with me forever_ , but that doesn’t seem right.

Of the million possibilities for how this conversation is going to go that Pete considers and rejects as he runs down the stairs, he never once considered the one that other people would be in the record store.

There’s Patrick, yes, and another guy and another girl. All eyes are on him as soon as he bursts into the store and it should be Patrick’s eyes that matter, but the thing is, it’s not. Because those other pairs of eyes look at him and they _know_. Pete sees the recognition come over them, the look of shock on their faces.

Fuck. This is about to be a scene.

Patrick begins, “Um. So,” because Patrick still clearly doesn’t know who Pete is. “This is—”

Pete can’t do this, he thinks, short of breath, panicked, he can’t be Pete Wentz right now, dammit. He gasps at Patrick, “I’ve got to go. I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go.”

Patrick flushes scarlet, a look on his face that is unmistakable hurt, and Pete is the worst asshole in the entire universe. Pete wants to press his face into Patrick’s neck and make this better, except that would end up on TMZ before Pete could finish taking his first breath of Patrick’s scent. So instead Pete dashes past him, and on his way out the door he throws over his shoulder, “God, I’m seriously _so_ sorry.”

Patrick stares at him.

Pete wheels into a pedestrian on the street, staggers past them, almost gets hit by a car because he looks the wrong way stepping off the curb, has a horn get honked at him, and then literally steals a cab from somebody who curses him as he slams the door shut. It is the most high-profile exit in the history of time.

The cab driver looks in the rear-view mirror, clearly about to chastise him, and then says, “Are you Pete Wentz?”

“I will literally give you a thousand dollars to take me directly to the Goring and not talk to me for the rest of the drive,” Pete begs.

“Can I have that in pounds, mate?” the driver asks.

“Absolutely,” Pete promises.


	7. Chapter 7

“Um,” says Patrick, as Pete disappears into a cab, as Pete could not have displayed _any clearer_ how much he must have intended to not be anywhere near Patrick’s in the morning. And of course he had to display that in front of Patrick’s only friends in London.

Patrick would like to die now, thanks.

He looks back at Vicky and Joe, both of whom are staring at him in astonishment.

He says sharply, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Because he doesn’t want to be teased about this. He feels…dangerously heartbroken. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected Pete to act but he’d gotten his fucking hopes up and now he feels like an idiot.

“Patrick,” Vicky starts slowly.

“No.” Patrick shakes his head jerkily. “It was stupid, okay?” He walks over to the cash register and opens the drawer and starts randomly counting money. “It was late and he was hot and it’s been a while and that’s it, okay?”

“Jesus Christ,” Vicky breathes. “His hoodie was on the stairs. I picked it up this morning. And I was like, ‘Ha, Patrick had company, I’m going to tease him.’ I was waiting for you to bring it up. Jesus fuck. I have his hoodie in my bloody flat.”

“Good,” Patrick says shortly. “Burn it. Who cares?”

“Who cares?” echoes Vicky, sounding disbelieving.

“You don’t know who that just was,” Joe realizes.

And, for the first time, Patrick feels like…maybe something is going on here he hasn’t grasped yet. He looks up in confusion. “Huh?”

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Vicky says to him.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

Vicky silently walks to the counter and picks up the magazine she was reading. She’d left it face-down on the counter, but now she turns it so Patrick can see the cover.

It’s an issue of _W_ , and on the cover is Pete.

 _Pete_ is on the _cover_.

Patrick snatches it out of Vicky’s hands, brings it closer to his eyes, like maybe it’s just that his eyesight is going. Pete’s staring out of the cover, his honey-gold eyes arresting and intense, his dark hair tousled into artful spikes all over his head. He’s wearing a black trench coat with its collar turned up, a gray Burberry scarf knotted at his throat. The expression on his face is smoldering.

Patrick thinks, _Oh, fuck,_ because Pete was so impossibly hot, not regular-person hot, person-on-a-magazine hot.

His eyes flicker to the headline. _Pete Wentz_ , it reads in huge font, and then in smaller font underneath that _likes puppies and punk rock_. Underneath that is a smaller quote. _“If all we ever talk about is how I’m bi, we’re missing a lot of interesting stuff about me.”_

“Jesus Christ,” Patrick breathes.

“You just shagged Pete Wentz, mate,” Joe says.

“Oh, my God,” says Vicky. “I think I have to sit down.” She sinks into the seat behind the counter.

Patrick has flipped to Pete’s interview. There’s a picture of him kicked back on a balcony overlooking New York, legs up on a table, a sliver of tantalizing belly showing where his shirt’s ridden up. The first paragraph reads, _Pete Wentz never sleeps. “The world’s got too much in it to do,” he says._ Patrick feels queasy.

“But who is he?” he says.

“A movie star,” Joe replies.

“A _huge_ movie star,” says Vicky. “You didn’t see _Infinity on High_?”

“Patrick stopped going to the movies in 1989,” says Joe.

Patrick is barely paying attention. He’s looking at the picture of Pete where he’s biting his own necktie.

“Was he good in bed?” Vicky says. “Now you’ve got to spill every detail.”

“I’m not…” In the interview Pete Wentz is saying, _Everyone made such a big deal that I still had a career after coming out as bi, which is so stupid. If I could act in a movie before, I could act in a movie after._ Honestly, Patrick can’t believe this is his life. He looks back at the photo of Pete and the tie. It should be ridiculous, his teeth clenched tight in the necktie, a scowl in his eyes, but it’s stupidly hot. _He’s a movie star_ , thinks Patrick, and thinks of Pete’s fictional worlds. He closes the magazine and pushes it away from him, because it feels like too much.

“Maybe you just shagged a lookalike,” suggests Joe.

“You don’t think Patrick could pull a movie star?” Vicky demands, offended on Patrick’s behalf.

Joe gives Patrick an assessing look.

Vicky swats him with the magazine. The magazine with Pete’s face on the cover. 

“Vick, he’s an international movie star!” Joe defends himself. “You think people who live in studio flats over record stores in London pull a lot of international movie stars, do you?”

“I mean, Patrick’s cute,” Vicky says. “And charming. I’m always saying Patrick should get laid more.”

“Apparently Patrick was saving up for the international movie star to show up,” remarks Joe. “Like, you only have to get laid once a year if that one time is Pete Wentz.”

Patrick doesn’t even know what to say. He opens and closes his mouth. He has nothing to say. Like, he doesn’t care about the fact that Pete Wentz is an international movie star. He cares about the fact that Pete Wentz was… Pete Wentz was _Pete_. Pete Wentz kissed him, slow and soft. Pete Wentz mapped his skin with his mouth. Pete Wentz laughed at him, and nuzzled him, and ate Lucky Charms at his table, and puppy-dog-eyed him into playing music for him. And then Pete Wentz ran out the door in the morning. These are the important facts about Pete Wentz. Not his face on the cover of a magazine.

“It doesn’t matter,” Patrick says abruptly. “It happened, and it’s over. It wasn’t that interesting. He’s just a guy. Moving on.”

Vicky and Joe look like they’re going to protest but then they look at Patrick’s face and his expression must make them change their minds, because they both close their mouths and go back to work.

And they work the remainder of the day without bringing up Pete Wentz once. When they’re heading out for the night—Vicky to the flat Patrick rents to her upstairs, Joe to meet his mates at the pub for a drink—Vicky pauses by the door leading to the staircase and says hesitantly, “What do you want to do with his records? And I still have his hoodie upstairs…”

Patrick looks at the bag of records tucked into the corner under the cash register. He goes back to the word puzzle he’s solving on his phone. He shrugs and says, “If he wants them, he’ll come by for them,” he says, as nonchalantly as possible.

Vicky hesitates a moment longer by the stairs. “He always seemed like he’d be really nice,” she ventures.

Patrick doesn’t look up from his phone. He’s never been so interested in a word puzzle in his life. “He was nice,” he says off-handedly.

Vicky drops it.

Pete doesn’t come by for the records.


	8. Chapter 8

Pete rushes breathlessly into his hotel room and Andy says, “Thank fucking God,” and hugs him, which Andy has never done before, ever.

“Oh,” Pete says, muffled, against Andy’s shoulder. “Hi.”

“You idiot, we thought you were dead,” Andy says harshly. “We thought you’d—Don’t do that again.”

Pete squeezes his eyes shut for a second. Yeah, of course his friends thought the worst. He _is_ the worst. “I’m okay. I’m sorry.”

And then Andy pushes him away and shoves him. “You asshole,” he snarls.

“I’m getting mixed signals here,” remarks Pete.

“Well, now that I know you’re not _dead_ , I’m furious with you. Where have you _been_? You left your _phone_. Butch is having an absolute fit that you weren’t on set. The studio’s bitching about the money you’re costing it. I’ve been fielding calls from Shane and you know I hate to talk to Shane. Like, what the fuck, man, never do that to me ever again.”

Pete winces. “Sorry, I…lost track of time.”

“Lost track of time _where_?” demands Andy.

“Um.” Pete considers a plausible lie. “At a speakeasy?” he suggests hopefully.

“A speakeasy,” Andy echoes flatly. “Did Al Capone keep you from coming home? A doll with a heart-shaped face and a heart of gold?”

“That’s a level of familiarity with the speakeasy era that I wouldn’t have expected from you, Andy,” says Pete jocularly, because maybe he can still change the subject.

“Look, tell me how bad it is,” Andy says bluntly. “I can’t fix it for you if I don’t know what you’ve done.”

Pete runs a hand through his hair and sits tiredly down in a chair. He woke up well-rested for the first time in ages, and now it’s completely gone, he’s as drained as he always feels, he wants to crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head.

He wants Patrick, abruptly and keenly, so sharply it catches his breath.

He says wearily, his head in his hands, “I met someone and I spent the night at his place.”

“Pete,” says Andy, exasperated, like that was so unreasonable of him.

“It was _nice_ ,” Pete protests.

“Are there going to be pictures?” asks Andy, arms folded, looking down at him like he’s an errant child.

Pete scowls. “No. I’m trying to tell you. It was _nice_. _He_ was nice. He didn’t even know who I am.”

Andy regards him stonily for a moment. “He didn’t know who you are?”

“No.” Pete shakes his head.

“Hmm,” says Andy dubiously, then takes out his phone and starts tapping away on it.

“What?” asks Pete.

“I’m looking for the pictures,” Andy says. “There are going to be pictures. Maybe video. Twitter’ll be all over it.”

“I’m telling you: He didn’t know who I am. He didn’t take pictures or video. He was nice. What’s wrong with us that we’ve forgotten what it’s like when people are nice? Fuck. When was the last time I met a nice person? It was a long time ago. Why don’t we get to meet nice people anymore? When’s the last time I met someone who just liked _me_?”

There’s a moment of silence. Andy says, “Everyone loves you, Pete, you know that. Do you want me to read you some ego tweets?”

Andy says this like that’s going to make Pete feel better, the anonymous tweets by people he’s never met all gushing about whatever filthy things they want to do to him. That isn’t going to make Pete feel better. That’s the opposite of what will make him feel better.

Andy goes on. “You wanted to be rich and famous, remember? This is what it looks like. So, if you want to cry, you can cry into your very expensive Louis Vuitton hoodie. Speaking of, what are you wearing?”

_Patrick’s t-shirt_ , Pete thinks. He ignores the question. “That wasn’t much of a pep talk,” he accuses.

“You don’t actually pay me for pep talks.”

“Who do I pay for pep talks?” Pete asks.

Andy snorts and walks out of the room. Like Pete doesn’t need an answer to that question.

It’s an appalling day. Miserable. Butch reams him out for the delay on set, as if Butch didn’t just spend the entire previous day holding the shoot up for the right shade of yellow leaves. Bebe gives Pete sympathetic looks and Pete’s pretty sure she thinks he went on some kind of all-night bender and needs rehab or something. Like, Pete gets it, he has a reputation, but he doesn’t even have the _energy_ for a bender these days.

When the day is finally, blessedly over, Andy walks Pete right into the hotel suite’s bedroom, like he’s worried Pete will escape, and commands sternly, “Stay in this room.” Then he gives Pete a look. Pete’s pretty sure he has Pete’s room bugged at this point. 

Pete sighs and crawls into bed. He doesn’t really have any other option. He couldn’t find his way back to Patrick if he tried. His sense of direction is terrible at the best of times. He’s never going to find a random London street again.

Patrick’s t-shirt is on the bed where Pete threw it after changing. He pulls it over and sniffs it and pretends it smells like Patrick (it doesn’t). He digs the note Patrick wrote him out of his pocket and looks at it for a very long time, studies the pen strokes that composed it, because that’s how pathetic he is. Pete looks at his phone, scrolls through his mentions on Twitter apathetically, the usual blend of love and hate that has nothing to really do with him. He takes a selfie artfully cropped to just be the top of his head, one weary-looking eye, a little bit of cheekbone. It’s a terrible selfie but the internet doesn’t demand better. He posts it to his Stories. Then he Googles _record store London_. He can’t find anything that looks likely to be Patrick’s.

“Idiot,” he says out loud to himself, and tosses the phone to the other side of the bed and stares up at the ceiling. Why the fuck had he run out that morning without getting Patrick’s number? Why is he so fucking useless all the time?

Anyway, what difference would it have made? Like Patrick would have wanted to see him again? Like, Pete is so pathetic, he is always _exactly this pathetic_ , thinking things mean things to other people, thinking _he_ means things to other people, and it’s never true. At least, never the way he wants it to be. This is just another Pete Wentz catastrophe, getting himself all tied up in knots over some nobody, and right now everyone who knows is sitting somewhere laughing at him.

He rolls over and presses his face into the pillow and resigns himself to a long, sleepless night.

It’s not as long as he thought it might be because there’s a knock on his door bright and early the next morning.

Andy, naturally.

“So,” he says without preamble, coming into the room. He hands Pete coffee. Sometimes he’s good at what he’s supposed to be doing. “Apparently the guy you hooked up with isn’t going to screw you over. Yet.”

“Christ,” Pete mutters into his coffee, “do you ever get overwhelmed by your incredible faith in humanity?”

“Just so you know,” Andy says, “being skeptical of humanity really _is_ part of what you pay me for. You asked me to help look out for you, and that’s what I’m doing. So. The guy you hooked up with seems decent so far, but there’s a cab driver with an interesting story.”

Andy thrusts his phone into Pete’s face. Pete leans back so he can focus. It’s a Twitter thread.

_Picked up THE Pete Wentz outside some random shop this morning. Fuckin wild._

_He was clearly wearing last night’s trousers, looking right bollocksed, and he paid me a thousand quid not to talk to him._

_Some kind of wild rager went on, so it’s time to spill: Which of you lads went on a bender with Wentz last night?_

“His story’s been corroborated,” Andy says. “Lots of eyewitnesses chiming in. How many people did you bump into running out on your one-night stand?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. He’s already exhausted again and he just got out of bed. He pushes the phone back over to Andy. “What does it matter?”

“You don’t think it’s going to matter to Butch if you went on a bender the other night?”

“Look,” Pete snaps, “the last I checked you’re not my agent, you’re supposed to get me coffee and pick up my dry cleaning. Thanks for the coffee. You can go now.”

Andy hesitates, then says, “I’m just trying to—”

Pete walks over to the door and opens it and says flatly, “Bye, Andy.”

Andy, after another moment of hesitation, does leave.

Pete closes the door behind him. He decides to hide in a long hot shower. When he gets out, there are six missed calls from his agent on his phone. Shane is having a meltdown.

“Oh, fuck,” Pete groans. Maybe he _should_ tell everyone he went on a bender so he can get a break from this fucking life he’s leading.

Pete doesn’t call Shane. Pete calls Andy. He says briskly, “Okay, I’m ready.”

When Andy knocks on his hotel room door, Pete opens it and says, “I’m going to show up to my job and act my ass off today. You’re going to call Shane and tell him I wasn’t on a bender.”

Andy winces and protests, “Really? Do I have to?”

“Yes, it’s your punishment for not being nicer to me,” Pete tells him.

Andy sighs.

Pete, on time for makeup, is a model actor employee. Butch is still not ready for the scene to be shot, so Pete stands on the side and thinks about how once upon a time he thought it would be super-glamorous to be an actor.

Bebe wanders over to him and comments, “You’re looking better today.”

“It wasn’t a bender,” Pete tells her.

“I don’t judge,” Bebe replies. “This is a judge-free zone.”

“Right,” Pete says. “Thanks. But it wasn’t a bender.”

Bebe says, “Okay,” in a tone of voice that indicates she’s sure it was a bender, and she wanders off again.

Andy comes over with coffee. He’s being an excellent PA. Maybe he actually feels bad about how upset Pete was.

Pete says, “Do you think we’re going to film today? How much longer, do you think?” Goddamn auteurs, he thinks but doesn’t say.

“I can check it out,” Andy offers.

Pete doesn’t think he’s going to get answers. This is just how movies with Butch go. Luckily, Pete’s being paid a lot of money. As he was reminded yesterday in many loud words.

Acting is the most fucking ridiculous career, what was he thinking? He gets paid to stand around most of the time with periodic flashes of being someone else, and then when he tries to do something that’s not work, he’s so immediately recognized that it’s impossible to be himself. He’s _no one_.

He’s whatever people on social media say he is, more accurately. He’s the guy that cab driver picked up outside Patrick’s after a bender.

Pete rubs at his forehead.

And then abruptly looks up.

The cab driver who picked him up outside Patrick’s.

“Oh, fuck,” Pete says out loud, and the people standing nearby look at him, and Pete thinks, _Great, another thing to show up on social media_ , but he pulls his phone out, scrolling frantically through Twitter. His mentions are a disaster, everyone weighing in on the cab driver’s story, what the fuck, why is it so fucking interesting.

Andy comes back over and says, “I’m assured that Butch almost has the leaves arranged exactly how he wants them. Also, I talked to Shane and—”

Pete thrusts his phone at Andy. “Find me those tweets the cab driver posted.”

“What?” Andy looks at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been answering questions about them all day and I forget what they even said,” Pete lies impatiently. Andy is too nosy. And Patrick doesn’t trust Andy not to try to talk him out of what he’s about to do. Because Andy doesn’t trust people.

Andy frowns like he doesn’t believe him but he taps over the phone screen and turns it back to Pete. “There.”

Pete reads the tweets over again. More importantly he reads the cab driver’s username. _Publife4lifeeeeee_.

“Thanks,” Pete says to Andy, and tucks the phone into his pocket like he doesn’t care about the tweets. “Tell me what Shane said.”

“I had to assure him that you weren’t on a bender.”

“You know,” Pete remarks, “I’m an adult. I’d appreciate it if everyone treated me like an _adult_. I can go out at night if I want.”

“You left your phone behind and missed work the next day, we all thought you were dead,” Andy points out flatly.

Pete pauses. “Okay. So. Yeah. Fair point.”

Andy sighs and says, “I’m getting myself a cup of tea.”

Pete, left alone, pulls his phone out of his pocket. He follows _Publife4lifeeeeee_. And then he DMs him. _Hey – Another thousand quid if you can tell me where you picked me up yesterday and keep this between us_.

And then someone shouts, “Pete Wentz!” His full name. And he realizes they’re...calling him to set.

Oh, wow, of course they’re going to actually start filming right when he’s left himself exposed with a Twitter DM.

He jogs over to Bebe, who’s waiting in position.

She murmurs, “We’re, like, actually going to act today.”

“I might have forgotten how to do it,” Pete replies.

Bebe smiles at him and says, “Okay, fine, maybe you didn’t go on a bender but it was _definitely_ a hot one-night stand.”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” says Pete, “but the hottest.”

Bebe winks at him.

They run through the scene, once, twice, three times, four times. They set up different shots. They run it through again. They try it angry. They try it sad. They try it happy.

And this is just an establishing scene where Pete and Bebe’s characters are talking about a recent trip to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for a dish they’re making for the potluck they’re about to attend where everything in their life explodes.

“Why,” Bebe asks gamely, “is my character angry about the potluck dinner dish?”

“Because women are oppressed into cooking for men,” Butch replies.

“Hang on,” Pete interjects, “I feel like my character would help her character cook—"

“No,” Butch tells him firmly, and walks away.

“Okay,” says Pete to nobody.

“Why,” Bebe asks the next time around, “is my character sad about the potluck dinner dish?”

“Because the recipe used to be made for her by her grandmother, and she’s never been able to make it quite the same way,” Butch explains.

Pete doesn’t say anything until Butch walks away, and then he murmurs to Bebe, “I thought the script was a romcom…”

And so it goes, for long enough that Pete forgets about his ill-advised DM to the cab driver.

When they’re finally done, it’s only because they’re losing the light. Pete’s not convinced they’re not going to just do the same scene again the next day. He’s not sure why he ever agreed to this movie.

(The paycheck. The paycheck is why he agreed to the movie. The paycheck is always why he agrees to movies.)

Bebe says, “Okay, I feel like we probably should go for a drink so you don’t end up on a bender again.”

“It wasn’t a bender,” Pete insists.

Bebe waves a hand at him and says, “Fine, go to your booty call.”

Pete would really like to go to his booty call. He remembers the Twitter DM and tries not to be too anxious about checking his phone. Andy is watching him closely, like he knows Pete’s up to something but he’s not sure what.

He says, as they walk to Pete’s suite together, “Seriously, I feel like things have been weird and you know I’m just trying to look out for you, right?”

Pete looks at Andy. He _does_ know that. He just feels like the looking-out is keeping him from _living_. He just feels like this existence he’s in is going to make him drown, that one day he’ll wake up and he won’t remember who he is, he’ll just be The Movie Star. He’s worried it’s already happened, judging by how shocked and startled he was to have to find a way to have a conversation with a person who didn’t already know who he was. Someone who didn’t think they knew him better than he knew himself. 

But Andy didn’t force him to be a movie star. Nobody did. Pete’s got exactly the life he asked for. It’s not Andy’s fault he doesn’t enjoy it. It’s _his_ fault he doesn’t enjoy it. He really should make more of an effort to _enjoy_ it. He’s a _movie star_. How fucking ungrateful is he, so many people would kill to be him. He’s fucked in the head, is his problem. He always has been, and hiding in the lives of other people hasn’t fixed that.

And again: That’s not Andy’s fault.

Pete smiles at Andy and says, “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m going through a...”

Andy knows how he gets, so Andy cuts him off. “Yeah. I know. I can tell. How bad is it? Should I call someone? I could probably get Gabe and William to fly out and keep you company, if you feel like you want to have a bit of an entourage around you.”

This is a thing he knows his friends always think he wants, to be surrounded by people to avoid being _alone_. The truth is, at the moment, Pete wants exactly one person, and _Publife4lifeeeeee_ holds the key to him.

Pete says, “Not yet. I think I’m okay for now.” If he opens Twitter to public ridicule because the cab driver has plastered his message everywhere, well, Pete’s probably going to quickly change his mind on that one.

There is no public ridicule on Twitter.

Pete opens it as soon as he has the door closed behind him, and no one’s talking about him anymore, his supposed bender’s already forgotten.

There are two glorious unread DMs for him from _Publife4lifeeeeee_.

The message reads: _Can I get some swag too?????_ And Pete figures, yeah, sure, whatever this guy wants. Because the next message is _an address_. What a glorious thing. What a _glorious_ thing. Pete has never loved an address so much in his life. He didn’t know it was possible to love an address this much. He stares at it for a very long time, memorizing it…and letting the beginning of panic rise up in his throat. Which is silly because...because this is exactly what he wanted, a way to contact Patrick again, this should definitely not be a reason to panic. Pete’s particular curse, if Pete were a character in a Greek myth, would be to always get exactly what he wants and for it to never be enough, for him to always react to it in chagrin.

It’s possible Pete _is_ a character in a Greek myth, cede control of your life to too many people and you definitely start to feel like you’re just at the mercy of the gods. 

Pete writes back to _Publife4lifeeeeee_ : _Dude, you can have all the swag you want, send me your deets_.

Then he looks at the address. This seemed like such a good idea earlier and now it seems idiotic. He wishes he had a friend he could call to ask about this. But he doesn’t. Anyone he calls will worry that his fixation on this guy is some kind of unhealthy coping mechanism.

Whatever. _Life_ is an unhealthy coping mechanism. Falling for a hot redhead who smiles at you like you’re something prosaically incredible, like, of the coping mechanisms you could have, that’s a good one.

Pete Googles the address, shifts to street view, swoops down to digitally stand on the street. The storefront is blank and shuttered in Google street view, but it’s definitely Patrick’s store. This cab driver deserves as much swag as he wants and more.

Pete’s first instinct is to Google the record store with this address and call and then…say what? _Hi, Patrick, it’s Pete, how are you?_ What the fuck, what a fucking stupid idea, Pete is full of so many stupid ideas.

He should go in person, he thinks. That’s what he should do. Patrick’s probably still going to scoff at him but at least Pete can look at his lovely face while he’s doing the scoffing, and that would be good. Pete ran out so quickly, his last memory of Patrick is that blank shock, even if he has to erase it with anger at him, he wants to erase it.

Pete looks at the time. But he can’t go now. It’s too early. People will be out. The record store will have customers. Pete will be recognized. 

Pete sets an alarm for later in the evening and vows not to let himself leave for Patrick’s until it goes off. Then he tries to play around with some apps on his phone but all of his apps are incredibly boring. He downloads new ones. They’re also incredibly boring. Wow, apps have really gone downhill.

When the alarm goes off, he sighs in relief and goes in search of a hoodie. He left one at Patrick’s, but luckily he has a profusion. Hoodies are his preferred armor to hide in when he’s trying not to be noticed. He huddles into one and pulls the hood up over his head.

It’s a nice night, and so there are more people out than the last time he went on this walk. More opportunity for Pete to attract attention. But it’s brisk enough that he can hide in his hood without people staring, and so he hides aggressively, sinking into it as deeply as he can, carefully following the directions on Google Maps and trying to remember to look the right way as he crosses streets.

Eventually, just like last time, the crowds thin out and grow nonexistent, so that Patrick’s street is completely still and silent as he turns onto it. How does his record store survive on a street so dead? Pete thinks. A single car turns down the street, illuminates him with its headlights, and for a moment he’s worried he might be recognized by the driver, and then he thinks, Wow, fuck, how much has fame messed with his head?

He starts walking down the street, toward the darkened record store. One of the neighbors steps outside with a tiny dog to walk, and Pete wonders vaguely if it’s the same dogwalker he encountered the other night.

“Good evening,” the woman says to him cheerfully.

Pete is loath to reply because he’s convinced everyone recognizes him all the time. What a fucking egotist, he’s never going to get Patrick to want to talk to him again. He stumbles out something like, “Yeah, thanks,” after the woman’s a good six steps past him.

Fucking Pete Wentz, he has no idea how he got named Sexiest Man Alive, he can’t even respond to a platitude hello.

Pete shakes himself out of self-disgust, finds himself at Patrick’s door. The same records are in the window, illuminated by the streetlight outside, but there is no sexy man in tight pants dancing while he shelves albums. The store is dark and still.

Pete chews on his lower lip and considers his options. He’s come all this way to see Patrick, it’s inconceivable for him to leave without seeing Patrick. Now that the possibility is so near, Pete can feel it against his skin tangibly, like static electricity.

Pete looks at the buzzer by the door. Buttons for the apartments above the store. Patrick’s apartment was on the second floor. Pete takes a deep breath and presses the button marked _2_.

A woman’s voice says curiously, “Yeah?”

Pete is frozen. _A woman_. Patrick is entertaining a woman. Patrick has company. Patrick’s whole life does not revolve around Pete Wentz. Obviously. Pete feels like the biggest idiot.

Pete hesitates.

The woman’s voice says, “Helloooooo?” sing-songy.

Pete manages, “Yeah, uh, sorry, I didn’t -- Sorry.”

And the woman’s voice says, “ _Oh_.”

Pete feels like he knows that _oh_ , that that’s a recognition _oh_ , and that he should get out of there as soon as possible. He stumbles out, “I’ll just get going,” like he needs to explain to this woman instead of just _running away_.

And then she interrupts his babbling to say, “Are you looking for Patrick?”

“Yeah,” Pete admits, “but, I mean, if he’s busy that’s--”

“He’s the button marked 1,” the woman’s voice says, sounding amused. “Americans always get that wrong. Be nicer to him this time, he’s been moping around the place. And I expect you to sign your hoodie for me so I can auction it on eBay, just so you know.”

“Oh,” Pete manages, unsure what to make of any of this. “Okay.”

The woman doesn’t reply, so Pete guesses she’s not listening to him struggle to be coherent over the intercom anymore.

Pete takes a deep breath. Pete looks at the button labeled _1_. Pete thinks, _Your last movie grossed over a billion worldwide, grow a pair, Wentz_. He presses the button.

Patrick’s voice, sounding distracted, says, “Hello?”

Pete exhales every tense breath he’s ever held in his life, all at once, just at the sound of that voice. Pete melts, curling over the door panel as if he can get closer to Patrick that way, curl around the sound of his voice, curl around the metaphysical fact of him. He closes his eyes and he breathes out, “Hey, Evanston.”

And he waits.


	9. Chapter 9

Patrick’s first night without Pete is a stupid night.

The bed when he comes upstairs is still rumpled, unmade, the way Pete left it that morning. He slept in it and he woke up in it and then he _left_ it. Patrick strips the sheets, and he will never admit to anyone the way he presses his nose into the pillowcase for the whiff of Pete’s scent. He then ruthlessly destroys that scent with Tide and Downy and those stupid scent crystal things Joe told him to get because Joe randomly got obsessed with them at some point. Patrick’s grateful he has them because now his sheets will have a profusion of scents that will not be _sex_ and _Pete_. Patrick needs to get rid of any sign that there was ever a movie star in his apartment.

The cup of coffee he foolishly made for Pete is still by the bedside. _Idiot_ , he thinks about himself severely, grabbing it. And that’s when he realizes what _isn’t_ there: the note he wrote. That gives him pause. Did Pete take the note? Patrick looks all around the nightstand, under the bed, all along the floor, but there is no sign that it fluttered anywhere, neglected. Patrick even peeks into his garbage cans. No note, unless Pete went to the effort of burying it underneath all the other trash. Which seems unlikely. Less likely than Pete taking it, though?

Patrick sits on his floor, bewildered. If Pete took the note…what does that mean? Does it mean anything at all? Maybe he scribbled a phone number on the back of it or something. Maybe he… Maybe he…

_Stop thinking about it_ , Patrick tells himself. He washes their cereal bowls from the night before, dries them, puts them away. Puts his guitar back on its stand and doesn’t think about playing it, the way Pete’s eyes lit gold at him as he did it.

And then, Patrick goes to bed. He can’t think of anything else to do.

He wakes up abruptly, in the middle of the night, with the sudden conviction that probably Pete took the note to make fun of him with it. Probably Pete posted it on Twitter. _Look at this loser who left me a besotted note!_ There’s something about that idea that’s almost comforting to Patrick. He can believe it, that Pete is that cruel. If Pete is so terrible, then Patrick won’t have to waste another second on him.

Patrick grabs for his cell phone, opens Twitter, searches for Pete’s account. He’s momentarily distracted by the profile picture, a kind of ridiculous selfie with Pete making a comical face. It’s the opposite of what he would have thought a professional movie star would have as his profile picture, but it seems very like the Pete Patrick would have said he was getting to know. And Pete is, naturally, very, very hot in the photo.

_Weighed down with words too overdramatic_ , is what his profile says. And then, underneath that, _Idk actor_. His location is _world of make-believe_.

And his most recent tweet is from days earlier. _Best place in London for a coffee?_

There’s nothing about Patrick. There’s no mockery. There’s just a long list of tweets about nothing very important. Their primary offensiveness is in how many emoji they use.

_Do you think city pigeons have favorite benches with favorite birdfeeders? Is there a Yelp for city pigeons?_

_Facial hair is really inefficient, how come we didn’t evolve away from facial hair?_

_I just listened to the Cure’s Catch fifteen times in a row, that’s normal, right?_

Patrick scrolls through them. Pete’s voice is so clear to him in them. He can hear him saying the words. They’re charming, funny, lovely. They’re everything Pete was. Patrick longs to reply, to start a conversation. _I think the benches on Trafalgar Square are probably the best_ , he wants to write. Would Pete respond to him? Would Pete ignore him? Would Pete even know the tweet’s from Patrick? Patrick’s Twitter handle is _ButAtWhatCostello_. Pete would have no reason to know that’s Patrick, unless he extrapolates from the record in the icon.

And what the fuck is Patrick _doing_? Of course he’s not going to tweet at Pete. Pete _left_. Pete _fled_. Pete could not make it any clearer that he wants nothing to do with Patrick. So Pete took the note. So the fuck what? Pete probably keeps little trophies of all his one-night stands. He doesn’t need to make them public because he just admires them in privacy, from the enormous bedroom of his luxury suite. He probably has himself a nice wank over them.

What-the-fuck-ever, Pete Wentz, Patrick thinks, and lays back down in a huff.

He doesn’t fall back to sleep.

The next day Vicky says, “Are you still moping about Pete Wentz?”

Patrick, staring at the bag of records still sitting under the cash register, now topped off with Pete’s abandoned t-shirt, looks at Vicky, startled, and says, “What? No. I was never moping about him. What?”

“Uh-huh,” says Vicky, not believing him, exactly the way a terrible employee would behave.

“You are a terrible employee,” Patrick tells her.

Vicky opens her mouth, but then doesn’t seem to know what to say, because she closes it again without saying anything.

That night, Patrick has Lucky Charms for dinner and doesn’t think about Pete. He definitely doesn’t think about Pete when he scrolls through streaming services until he finds a Pete Wentz movie. Like. He totally intended to watch _Infinity on High_ someday, he really did.

The movie is an action-romantic-comedy. It’s juggling a lot of genres. Pete is also juggling a lot of genres. He does it with a ridiculous amount of charm. He’s hot in the action sequences, capably skidding through a car chase, killing bad guys with devastating perfect shots, ducking under punches in choreographed fight scenes. He’s swoonworthy in the romance sequences, watching the love interest with that golden gaze, smiling at her with that rueful twist of his mouth. He’s hilarious in the comedy sequences, appealingly deadpan, foolishly silly. He’s vulnerable and self-deprecating and competent and fuck this fucking movie, Patrick can’t believe he’s watching it and can’t stop. _That guy_ , he thinks, and then doesn’t finish the thought. Kissed him? Fucked him? Looked at him like that? Smiled at him like that? Was any of it real? Was all of it acting?

He’s so deep into the movie that the buzzer ringing isn’t as curious as it should be. He isn’t expecting anyone and he really should be wondering who it is before he says, “Hello?” But the truth is he’s annoyed at having to pause the movie right in the middle of the big graphic love scene.

And then the voice he’s been listening to all night says, “Hey, Evanston.”

Patrick blinks at the buzzer. Patrick looks at the frozen sex image on his television. Patrick says, “What?” Because he thinks maybe he’s hallucinating.

“I was wondering,” Pete’s voice says, sounding a thousand times more hesitant than at any point in the movie, a thousand times more uncertain. This is the voice Patrick had in his life for that one stunning night. This is not the voice of the movie star on his screen. The cognitive dissonance swirls around him, and he closes his eyes. “I was wondering if,” says Pete, and then stops again.

Patrick moves of his own volition, without making up his mind to do it. Patrick goes downstairs, and there is a movie star standing outside his door.

There is Pete standing outside his door.

Patrick shuts off the alarm and opens the door.

“Hi,” Pete says from inside the hoodie he’s wearing.

Patrick looks at him steadily. His face is in shadows but the thing is, Patrick, impossibly, _knows_ that face. Not because he’s in movies or on magazines. Because he watched it browse through records one night. Because he watched it sleep in his bed. Because he watched it watch him sing. Pete’s eyes are dark, but Patrick can see the uncertainty in them, and the hope, the way he’s pitched toward Patrick, quivering for Patrick to make a move.

Patrick doesn’t understand why Pete ran away, but Patrick does understand that Pete came back. And maybe that’s… Maybe that’s…

“Are you here for your records?” Patrick asks.

Pete doesn’t take his eyes off him as he shakes his head.

Patrick takes a step forward, standing right on the threshold of the store.

Pete follows suit. They stand there, on the threshold, lined up, close enough to breathe each other in. Patrick looks from the gleam of Pete’s eyes to the curve of his jaw disappearing into the hood, the sweep of his mouth.

Pete whispers, “Patrick.”

That’s it. Just his name. And a deep, shaky breath afterward. A shudder that goes through his body, and Patrick imagines he can feel the disturbance in the air brush up against him.

Patrick tips forward to kiss him like he’s grabbing for a life preserver, for something to keep him alive and afloat. The good news is that Pete kisses him back the same way, desperate and fast, stumbling against him in haste, teeth clashing, tongues tripping, and it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, because Pete kisses him like he’s _everything_ , and Patrick doesn’t care if that’s faked because it’s real to him right now, at this moment, and he wants all of it, all of it.

He realizes he’s mumbling that out loud when Pete starts mumbling back, “You can have all of it, you can have it…”

Patrick shoves the hoodie off his head to get his hands in Pete’s hair. Pete’s hands dip under the waistband of the sweatpants Patrick’s wearing to grab at his ass. Patrick manages to remember to close and lock the door behind them, although the alarm system is utterly beyond him. He can be robbed blind tonight and he would be _fine_ with it, he thinks, as they tumble along the stairs, as Pete kisses him senseless on the fourth step, and the eleventh step, and the landing, and against his door, long luxurious sweeping kisses that create their own rhythm in time, that make Patrick feel like he can live eternity in this moment, this one, right here, that breath, that groan, that nip of Pete’s teeth, that sweep of Pete’s hands.

They’re in the apartment, they’re on the bed, they’re naked and tangled, there’s friction and sweat, there’s Pete gasping his name, and _Christ, just like that, Jesus_ , and _How are you this perfect?_ And Patrick shatters.


	10. Chapter 10

Pete is pretending to sleep. Aggressively.

“Yo,” says Patrick. “Movie star in my bed. I know you’re awake, you’re not that good at acting.” Patrick pokes at Pete’s nose.

“Mmph,” says Pete without opening his eyes. “Not awake. Sleeping very hard because of that very good orgasm. Sleeping _forever_. Might never wake up.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Patrick says softly, “Hey, don’t talk like that.”

Why does he do this? Pete wonders. Why does he always do this to people he likes _so_ much? He opens his eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just…” Patrick clearly knows exactly who he is now, and there goes Pete’s safe bubble of an anonymous world in this flat. There goes… There goes whatever Pete was subconsciously fantasizing about. Another life, a chance at another identity. He’s Pete Wentz again. “Go ahead,” he says, trying not to sound as resigned as he feels. “Ask away.”

“Ask?” echoes Patrick. His eyes are steady on Pete. All the lights are on in the apartment, and Pete can see clearly how very beautiful Patrick’s eyes are. Pete will get to watch in real time the disappointment Patrick will display in those beautiful eyes when he sees how much Pete doesn’t live up to the hype. Exciting, he thinks sarcastically. Thrilling. Awesome. 

All he says, laconically, is, “Sure. You must have a lot of questions.”

Patrick regards him thoughtfully. “You know, I thought I did. I really did. You ran out yesterday and I thought I had _so_ many questions. And now I…” Patrick trails off, his eyebrows drawn together as he looks at Pete. And then he brightens. “Do you want some Lucky Charms again?”

Pete blinks. “What?”

“Lucky Charms,” Patrick repeats, hopping out of bed. “You were really into the Lucky Charms last time.”

“I was…” Pete, stunned, watches Patrick pull his sweatpants back on, a t-shirt back over his head, as he walks to the kitchen. “I mean, yeah, I never say no to Lucky Charms.”

“Lucky Charms and a blowjob, that’s your hierarchy.” Patrick throws a charming smile at him over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Pete says faintly, as Patrick pulls bowls down from the cupboard. Patrick is…making them bowls of Lucky Charms. He really is. This is a serious thing he’s doing. Pete doesn’t know what to make of this. He swings his legs off the bed. He follows Patrick’s lead and pulls on underpants at least, although he doesn’t at first glance see the t-shirt he’d been wearing. He decides locating the t-shirt is brainpower he’d rather devote to whatever is happening with Patrick. He sits at the kitchen table and accepts a bowl of Lucky Charms and says, “What is…”

“Lucky Charms,” Patrick explains, like that’s the source of Pete’s confusion.

“No, what’s… What’s happening right now?”

Patrick lifts his eyebrows, sitting opposite Pete. “Lucky Charms,” he repeats. “That’s what’s happening right now.”

“You don’t want to ask me why I didn’t tell you who I am?” Pete asks disbelievingly.

“Nope,” says Patrick cheerfully, and takes a bite of his cereal.

Pete doesn’t know what to make of this. He takes a bite of cereal while he contemplates what to do, then says, “Okay, then I have questions.”

“Ask away.” Patrick gestures with his spoon.

“Who told you who I am?”

“Are you so sure I didn’t know?” asks Patrick.

“Yes,” Pete replies drily. “I am _positive_ you didn’t know.”

“Okay, fine, you’re right, I didn’t know. My employees told me. You know, when you tripped over yourself running away from here.”

“I didn’t want it to be a… I didn’t want it to get…” Pete looks at Patrick, who looks back at him and eats his Lucky Charms. He suddenly doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. Patrick is offering him the return of anonymity, the Pete who sat opposite him and ate Lucky Charms with no movie star aura, and Pete is an idiot not to be seizing it with both hands. “Can I ask another question?”

“Go for it,” says Patrick.

“Do you have to import the Lucky Charms?”

Patrick grins, looking delighted by him. Delighted by this non-movie-star Pete. That doesn’t happen in Pete’s experience. Pretty much…ever.

Patrick says, “No, they sell them at Tesco.”

“So not everything is weird and different in this country,” says Pete.

Patrick laughs. “It’s not that weird and different.”

“I’ve almost been killed, like, seventeen different times because I keep looking the wrong way when I cross the street.”

“You should always look _both_ ways before crossing a street,” Patrick replies. “Didn’t you learn that in kindergarten?”

“Look, we’re lucky I learned how to tie my shoes in kindergarten, traffic rules were beyond me.”

“Is that why you wear those hideous slipper things that look like you suffered a tragic foot injury?” Patrick asks. “Because you never learned to tie your shoes?”

“I will have you know that those are _designer_ hideous slipper things,” Pete informs him. “Also they’re the most fucking comfortable things I’ve ever worn in my life, here, try them.” Pete turns on the seat, searching Patrick’s apartment for wherever he kicked off the slippers.

And then he pauses, staring at the television. He turns back to Patrick, who’s putting their empty bowls in the sink.

“Patrick,” he says. He says his name deliciously, rolling it around in his mouth. Pete has never really given much thought to people’s names but he loves Patrick’s, loves the way it feels on his tongue, past his lips, the way the pop of the “p” at the beginning shifts into the clack of the “ck” at the end, the way the two syllables gives it a rhythm that Pete gave up when he decided to go with a nickname. The point is: Pete is given lots of words to say every day but _Patrick_ is the only word he’s encountered that he feels he would happily say forever.

“I am not,” Patrick says good-naturedly, rinsing the bowls, “going to wear your hideous slippers.”

“I think officially they’re sandals,” Pete says, slipping up behind Patrick to slide his arms around Patrick’s waist, mouth at the back of his neck.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Patrick says it on a sigh, undercutting its drollness, leaning forward to let Pete scrape his teeth along the back of his shoulder.

“Here’s the thing,” Pete murmurs into the soft, warm space behind Patrick’s ear. He noses along the curve of his jaw. “I really want to just _ravish_ you, take our time, not rush it, spend _forever_ on every inch of you.”

“Okay,” Patrick exhales shakily, as Pete kisses down his neck.

“But,” says Pete.

“But?” echoes Patrick.

Pete tugs on Patrick’s earlobe with his teeth, grinning. “Your television wants to know if you want to continue watching _Infinity on High_.”

Patrick startles, looking over at the television, which is indeed asking him that very question. “Fuck,” he says, and rushes over to the television.

Pete watches him, amused. “Were you watching _Infinity on High_?”

“No,” Patrick says, fumbling with the remote control. The movie starts playing. It’s the middle of the sex scene. Pete on the screen drops onto the bed, bare ass just outside the framing of the shot.

“Oooh,” says Pete, “I see, so you were just watching _this scene_ of _Infinity on High_?”

“ _No_ ,” Patrick insists, flustered.

“I’ve got better ones,” Pete remarks frankly. “That’s a blockbuster, they don’t let you do anything interesting in a blockbuster. The artsy shit I made in the beginning, like, that’s where the nudity lives.”

Patrick finally gets the movie to stop playing. “I wasn’t watching your sex scenes,” he says, “I was…” He looks at Pete. “I didn’t know who you were,” he says finally.

Pete can’t take his eyes off of Patrick. To be honest, Pete is worried he might never be able to take his eyes off of Patrick. He might do nothing but look at Patrick for the rest of his life. That’s how it feels at the moment. He says softly, “You’ve really never seen _Infinity on High_?”

Patrick shakes his head a little, but mostly he just holds Pete’s gaze. “I’m not good at keeping up with movies.”

Pete walks toward him slowly, until he reaches him, until he’s standing right next to him, until he can look right down into those blue-green-hazel eyes. He takes a deep breath. He says, “You really don’t want to ask me why I didn’t tell you who I am?”

Patrick reaches up to drift his fingers through Pete’s hair, along the shell of his ear, down the side of his neck. Pete shivers because he can’t help it. Patrick steps closer, presses his lips underneath Pete’s jaw. Patrick whispers, “I don’t need to ask because I think I already know.”


	11. Chapter 11

Patrick’s got a movie star sleeping in his bed. 

This is the second time this week. His life is getting weird. 

This is the first time he’s _known_ , though, so it’s the first time he’s truly grasping the weirdness of his life. Like, it had been weird enough that this hot guy wanted to have sex with him out of the blue. _Even weirder_ that he’s some world-famous hot guy. World-famous hot guys do not hang out with Patrick Stump. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Patrick whispers to the sleeping Pete. 

Pete doesn’t stir. He’s sleeping hard, deep, dead to the world, sheets twisted around him. He’s sprawled on his stomach so Patrick’s view is of his ass, half-obscured by the tangled sheets, and the tattoos on his back. A really hideous one low on the small of his back, and, really, why did Pete think that was a good idea? 

Patrick places his hand on the tattoo. Pete doesn’t stir. He’s warm, his skin smooth, and something about him seems so _vibrant_. Pete is more vivid than other humans are, and Patrick thought that even before he knew he was a movie star. 

Patrick doesn’t need to ask why Pete didn’t explain who he is. That was obvious from the look of dread on Pete’s face over having to be Pete Wentz. It’s crystal clear to Patrick why Pete hadn’t said anything. 

What Patrick doesn’t understand is why Pete is here at all. 

Patrick’s trying not to think that Pete wouldn’t be here if Patrick had recognized him, that Pete’s only here because Patrick is the best option he’s got, that he would have preferred someone hotter, sexier, awesomer, but he’s got Patrick who won’t sell him out to the paparazzi, so he’s settled for him. 

Patrick doesn’t let himself think that. It’s probably _true_ , but that’s a thought for tomorrow’s Patrick, when he gets left again. Tonight’s Patrick can enjoy this, really, he can, he’s allowed to, he can’t just...

It is fucking _dangerous_ , Patrick thinks, but he still slides himself closer to Pete. He holds his breath as he tucks himself against him, waiting for Pete to wriggle and shove him away, but Pete doesn’t. Pete mutters something and nuzzles closer, and Patrick breathes shakily. 

It was fucking dangerous before he knew who Pete was, and it’s a thousand times more dangerous now, because this is a Cinderella moment, Pete will turn into a pumpkin in the morning, the person on magazine covers who doesn’t have time for boring record-store owners. Patrick is going to be left again, worse this time, it’s going to be worse and worse every time he gets left.

But right now – _right now_ – Patrick hasn’t been left. Patrick’s in the not-left-yet state. Patrick has Pete breathing in his ear. Patrick doesn’t want to waste this.

_Don’t get used to this_ , Patrick warns himself, chants it like a mantra over and over in his head. _This isn’t yours. Don’t get used to this_.

Patrick falls asleep telling himself this, and it probably would have worked, except for the fact that he wakes up to his Cinderella kissing his way down his chest, his hands in really delightful places.

“Mmph,” Patrick says muzzily, and isn’t sure what he intends for that to mean.

“Good morning,” Pete says to him, his voice early-morning gravelly, and Patrick didn’t get this last time, and he thinks, _Goddamn it, why aren’t you gone yet, this is worse, worse, worse_ , it’s going to be so much worse to be left in full consciousness, with memories of kisses this fucking fresh, but he closes his hands into Pete’s hair and keeps him close, doesn’t protest as he licks his way down his sternum, just sighs his name.

“I want to…” Pete mumbles into the soft skin of Patrick’s belly, scrapes his teeth there. “I want to…”

“Please,” Patrick says. He doesn’t care what Pete wants, whatever it is, he wants it, too, undeniably, irresistibly.

“You’re—” Pete starts, but Patrick doesn’t get to hear what he is, because there’s a knock on the door.

Pete startles, looking over his shoulder toward the door. “Jesus,” he says, looking more alarmed than Patrick thinks he should, but then again, Pete probably usually lives his life with constant glances over his shoulder, and this cocoon of not having to do that has been destroyed.

Patrick feels murderous, as Vicky calls through the door, “Patrick, it’s Vicky and we really need to talk.”

“No, we don’t!” Patrick calls to her furiously. “Go away!”

“No, no, we really, _really_ need to talk, Patrick, it’s about…P-e-t-e.”

Pete looks at Patrick. “Does she think I don’t know how to spell my own name?”

Patrick shakes his head. “Let me get rid of her.” He scrambles out from underneath Pete. “Hold this thought,” he says, and stupidly gestures at his own penis, because, like, yeah, _that’s_ suave.

Pete looks down at it with a rueful smile. “I _was_ ,” he says.

Patrick shakes his head again, grabbing a t-shirt and pulling it over his head, and then realizing what a stupid move that was because he’s completely naked where it actually _counts_ , so when he opens the door on Vicky he angles himself behind it, poking his head around the edge of it. “You are fucking _fired_ ,” he hisses at her, “you are the worst person in the _universe_.”

“Patrick,” Vicky says, holding her hands up in what seems like self-defense. “I hear you, mate. I do. But, like. I don’t know what to do.”

“About _what_?” says Patrick. “I don’t need you to—”

“No, _I_ need _you_ to look out the window,” says Vicky.

Patrick pauses. This isn’t anything like what he expected Vicky to say. He vaguely thought Vicky was going to tease him about having a movie star in his bed again. He says, “What?”

“Honest to God, Patrick, I’m not trying to interrupt your hot movie-star sex—”

“Shh, you and I don’t discuss sex,” Patrick cuts her off, wincing.

“—but all I wanted was to pop out and get a cup of coffee before opening the shop. That’s all I wanted.” Vicky fixes him with a significant look. “And then I looked outside.”

Patrick feels dread at that look. It’s a cold solid ball in his stomach. “Hang on,” Patrick tells Vicky, and closes the door and looks toward the window.

“Does she want an autograph?” Pete asks from the bed. He’s deliciously rumpled, his hair every-which-way, his skin on fabulous display, sitting there amidst Patrick’s tangled sheets.

Patrick swallows thickly and inches over to the window. He’s got half-hearted gauzy curtains on it. They came with the place. He’s not exactly into decorating. He peeks out the very corner of the window, and the street is fucking _blocked off_ with photographers and cameras and news crews.

Patrick stumbles back from the window so quickly he almost trips over Pete’s jeans, abandoned there the night before.

“Oh, fuck,” Pete says from the bed, and he doesn’t sound at all surprised, just resigned. “How bad is it?”

Patrick looks at him in shock. “ _Pete_. Do you know how many people are out there?”

“No,” says Pete grimly, crawling over the bed, leaning off it to poke around on the floor. “Come away from the window, you don’t want them to take your picture, do you?”

“Take _my_ picture?” echoes Patrick, dazed. “Why the fuck would anyone want to—”

“Oh, they’re over there,” Pete interrupts him. “Can you grab my phone? It’s in the pocket of my jeans.”

Patrick leans down to pull Pete’s phone out automatically. “But…” he says, and doesn’t know what else to say, as he walks over to the bed and hands Pete’s phone to him.

Pete swipes it open, frowning, and then sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Pete,” Patrick says helplessly. He thought Pete was going to disappear; he didn’t know Pete was going to make a million other people appear instead.

“I didn’t know I was followed last night.” Pete is tapping away on his phone. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“No,” Patrick says. “What?” He was, not five minutes earlier, contemplating an early-morning blowjob, what the _fuck_.

Pete tosses his phone away. “I’ve got my team working on things. In the meantime, you should take a shower and get dressed.”

“Why?” Patrick asks stupidly. He knows he’s behaving like he’s been frozen in concrete here, but there's a lot of weirdness going on.

“Because I assume you don’t want your dick in the pictures, but, like, I mean, if you do, I support your decision.” Pete tries a lopsided smile at him.

It’s an odd smile, stilted and forced. He’s _acting_ , Patrick thinks distantly. It’s like a completely different person is sitting in his bed. “No,” he says harshly. “Stop it. What pictures?”

Pete glances toward the window. “I mean,” he says.

“They don’t want pictures of _me_!” Patrick protests. “I mean, _look_ at me.” Patrick gestures to himself.

Pete looks at him for a long moment. Then he says heavily, “I’m sorry. I really am.”

Pete looks so tired, so very exhausted, and it hits Patrick over the head all of a sudden, the full weight of being a movie star. He’s been viewing it as a Cinderella fairy tale, but couldn’t he tell that very first night how monumentally _sad_ Pete was? Pete’s a movie star, and it means he can’t just disappear for a night. Pete does the opposite of disappear, ever. _This_ is Pete Wentz, and this is, Patrick sees with striking clarity, exactly why he showed up at his door. Twice.

Patrick says, with careful nonchalance, “I wish I’d gotten a haircut.”

It startles laughter out of Pete, the kind of laughter that skirts the edge of tears, and Patrick suddenly finds himself with a bundle of movie star in his arms, Pete’s face pressed into his t-shirt, holding him close in a desperate grip, breathing hard into his chest.

Vicky knocks on the door again. “Patrick? Er…”

“Tell her my team is coming to handle it,” Pete mumbles into Patrick’s chest.

“Stay away from the windows, Vick,” Patrick calls back to her. “We’re taking the morning off. I’ll bring you up coffee in a few minutes.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Vicky says, “You’re the boss.”

Pete doesn’t move from where he’s pressed against Patrick. There’s a little-boy desperateness to the action, a clinging determination to keep the world at bay by not acknowledging it, like if you squeeze your eyes shut it will all go away, object impermanence.

“Hey, Wilmette,” Patrick whispers into the top of Pete’s head, and he shudders against him. “Come take a shower with me.”


	12. Chapter 12

Patrick’s shower was not built for two. It’s tiny and utilitarian. And it has a window Pete is paranoid about. The entire experience is the opposite of sexy. Pete spends the whole time grumbling about British showers and wishing he wasn’t because these are his last moments with Patrick, probably, and look what he’s _doing_ with them. Andy’s going to show up with a plan for dealing with the media, and Patrick is going to rightfully despise this intrusion on his lovely, wonderful life, and that’s going to be end of this lovely interlude, and it’s ending like _this_ , Pete grouchy and cold, wet hair dripping on his shoulders, digging through Patrick’s medicine cabinet for hair product.

“Seriously,” says Pete, “you have _nothing_?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be getting a movie star ready for a photo call,” Patrick says, his voice calm and even, utter reasonableness. He has not snapped once during any of Pete’s sulking tantrums, and it’s fucking annoying.

Pete can’t think of how to articulate his level of frustration, so he makes a little pile of all the contents of the medicine cabinet, like he’s going to catalogue all of it.

Patrick watches from the doorway. “This is a level of intimacy I feel should ordinarily be reserved for date number five, at least.”

“I,” says Pete, “do not do things in an ordinary way. Have you noticed? I don’t ever reach date number five with people, because on date number two fucking the entire fucking media shows up to chase me down and ask how I could _possibly_ have expected, for two fucking seconds, to go off and have sex without a _camera_ documenting every possible move.”

“Pete, this is okay,” Patrick says, the fucking voice of fucking eternal _reason_.

“No, it is _not_ ,” Pete snaps at him, and swipes a hand through the bottles he’s assembled, sending them scattering across the bathroom. Patrick’s eyes track their progress mildly. “You need to yell at me for this.”

Patrick lifts an eyebrow and says, “Clean those up,” and then walks away.

“Fuck,” Pete says under his breath, and feels like a chastened, childish idiot, and picks all of the bottles up and tries to fit them back into Patrick’s medicine cabinet. It’s like Tetris. It doesn’t go well. Finally, he decides it’s good enough and goes back out into the main room.

Patrick is sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee. Pete stands opposite him and feels his way toward an apology. “I’m sorry,” he decides is the best way. “I should say something better but I’m no good without a script.”

“You’ve been fine without a script,” Patrick replies lightly, looking at him over the top of his mug. “Do you want coffee?”

He wants coffee badly. He accepts the invitation and goes over to the coffee maker and pours himself a mug. Then he hesitates before going to sit opposite Patrick.

“Do you want anything for your coffee?” Patrick asks.

“No,” says Pete. “It’s fine. This is fine. You don’t have to—”

“Pete, I’m not angry,” Patrick says. “I know you think I’m supposed to be throwing a fit here but you’re the only one throwing a fit, you may have noticed.”

Pete considers, then says, “I did notice. It’s annoying.”

Patrick laughs.

“You should be _furious_ with me,” Pete says. “Look what I’ve done.”

“You haven’t done anything. You’ve just been you. What do you want me to say to you? You can’t be something other than who you are.” Patrick shrugs.

Pete looks at him, at his tousled hair and his pretty mouth and his incredibly beautiful eyes. He is devastated at the _loss_ of this, at how everything good is going to disappear again the way it always does. He says softly, “I don’t know. Can’t I? Why not?”

Patrick looks back at him evenly. “That’s not how it works.”

Pete sighs and rubs at his temples and he is just so _tired_.

“Look,” Patrick begins. “Pete.”

Pete shakes his head furiously. He doesn’t want to be broken up with, they’re not even actually going out. But that’s the problem, isn’t it, no person like Patrick wants to be with a person like Pete, not for the heartbeats necessary for a serious relationship, not for anything beyond this fantasy night. “You don’t have to say it,” Pete says. “I’m going to try to make this as easy for you as I can. I promise. I didn’t mean to fuck up your life like this. I mean. I guess I did. What did I expect to happen? But anyway—"

“Pete,” Patrick interrupts, sounding confused. “I’m not worried about _me_.”

Pete looks at him in surprise. “What? You should be.”

“Why?” Patrick looks very bewildered. “I’m fine. I’m worried about _you_. You’re--”

There’s a commotion from outside, rising exclamations and clamor. Patrick glances toward it. Pete sighs again as he gets to his feet. “That’ll be Andy, coming to handle all of this. Don’t worry. Hopefully it’ll all be over soon.” Pete tries a game smile.

Patrick frowns. “Pete. I don’t--”

Pete silences him by cupping his hand against Patrick’s cheek. If he can keep Patrick from saying a full sentence, he can keep Patrick from breaking his heart. He can break up with Patrick first. He says, “I want you to know.” Patrick looks at him with his wide blue-green-gray eyes, blinking behind his glasses. Pete swoops in to kiss his cheek, freshly shaven, smooth and clean-smelling. He’s never kissed Patrick freshly shaven before. It makes him think of all the other times he’s not going to get to kiss Patrick. He closes his eyes and presses his nose into Patrick’s cheek and breathes him in and tries to lock him in memory. Later, he thinks, he’s going to try to find the words that might come close to approximating Patrick. In the meantime, Patrick’s buzzer sounds behind him. “You’ve been spectacular,” Pete whispers into Patrick’s skin, and then straightens to answer the buzzer.

And the thing is, this is already a fucking terrible morning, and then Pete says, “Yeah?” into the buzzer and the response is, “Good morning, Pete, it’s your agent Shane, remember me?”

“Oh, fuck,” says Pete.


	13. Chapter 13

Patrick’s been watching Pete disintegrate all morning. The Pete he’s got in front of him now is so different from the Pete who woke him up with his hand on his dick and his lips on his chest, he’s like a completely different person. But Patrick can’t shake the feeling that this Pete that Pete’s turning into is the fake Pete, that Patrick’s had the real one all along, and that it’s somehow important that he sit here and try to remind Pete of that fact. This is the Cinderella moment where Cinderella turns back into a maid right in front of Prince Charming, and surely Prince Charming ought to point out that she’s still the princess he danced with. Like, Patrick’s no Prince Charming, but. You know. Something like that.

And now Pete leans his forehead against Patrick’s door and breathes out, “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” like the arrival of his agent is a tragedy.

“Didn’t you call him?” Patrick asks cautiously.

“No,” Pete says wearily. “I never call Shane if I can help it. I have no idea what the fuck he’s doing here.”

“He’s your agent?” Patrick is pretty sure that’s what Shane said, but maybe he heard wrong.

Pete nods grimly, straightening as there’s a knock on the door and then yanking it open.

Patrick wishes he’d had time to ask why Pete avoids calling his own agent, like, surely his agent is supposed to work for _him_.

Then Shane bursts through the door and immediately slings an arm around Pete, and Patrick cringes on Pete’s behalf and wonders why the fuck this person is his agent. The arm draped over Pete’s shoulders should be a casual gesture of affection but it feels aggressive and calculated. Pete doesn’t exactly recoil but he looks nothing more than resigned to the interaction. “And how is my favorite cash cow?” Shane asks, and tousles Pete’s damp hair, and Pete makes a face.

“Don’t...” he says, ducking away.

“Oh, please, it’s a mess.” Shane waves Pete away and looks at Patrick. “So you’re the piece of ass, huh?”

Patrick is so stunned by that characterization that he can only respond with, “What?”

Pete winces and says, “Shane, he’s not—"

“Okay. So.” Shane drops his arm away from Pete and rubs his hands together. “Lucky you, I just so happened to be in town.”

Patrick’s not sure if he means lucky Patrick or lucky Pete. Maybe lucky both of them.

“Yeah, _why_?” says Pete. “No one told me you were coming.”

“I wanted it to be a thrilling surprise for you, Petey,” says Shane. “And I’ve shown up just in time. So what do you say?”

Shane is looking expectantly at Patrick.

Patrick has no idea why. “What do I say...?”

“Shane, he’s not—" Pete begins again.

“How much money will it take to get you to keep quiet about this guy?” Shane jerks a thumb in Pete’s direction and sends Patrick what Patrick is sure is supposed to be a charming smile.

Patrick narrows his eyes. “You want to buy me off?”

Shane looks surprised. “Of course I want to buy you off, why do you think I’m here? This is, like, eighty-seven percent of my job, keeping all of Pete’s indiscretions from talking to the press.” Shane glances at Pete for confirmation. “Isn’t that right, big guy?”

Pete is looking fixedly at his shoes.

Patrick wants to frown even harder but apparently he’s already hit maximum frowniness.

“So this is how this works,” Shane continues. “You name your price, and then you promise that your fifteen minutes of fame end today and no one – especially not me – ever has to learn your name.”

Patrick gazes at him for a moment, then looks at Pete, who’s still not looking at him. And he feels... He doesn’t know how he feels. He told himself not to get used to this, and now he’s standing here offended that Pete’s going to pay him to walk away and never bother him again? He knew this was a fairy tale that was never going to last, he _knew_ this. He can’t believe how hurt he is by Pete not looking at him as he does this, though. Like he can’t bear the sight of him. Patrick knew the second time he got left was going to be worse than the first, but he grossly underestimated just how much worse.

Patrick stops looking at Pete. Patrick doesn’t want to see any more of Pete. Patrick can’t handle the Cinderella idea anymore, not right now with his heart all trampled on. Patrick looks at Shane and says flatly, “I don’t have a _price_.”

“Everyone has a price, slick,” Shane tells him confidently.

“I don’t,” Patrick says stubbornly. “You can go now.”

“Patrick,” Pete inserts earnestly, “you should take the money—"

“Fuck you,” Patrick snaps, “I’m not going to go to the _press_ , the last thing I want is to talk about my sex life in print.”

“Right,” Pete agrees calmly. “But that’s why you should take the money, because your life’s about to become miserable, people will say awful things on social media and you should—"

“That’ll blow over,” Patrick says. “They’re going to get bored very quickly. My life is very dull. You don’t need to feel guilty, I don’t feel taken advantage of here, we can just go our separate ways like grown-ups.” Patrick watches Pete’s eyes, wide and gold, drinking him in. “Right?” Patrick challenges.

There’s a moment when Patrick thinks Pete might actually disagree, where Pete might say _fuck going separate ways, let’s talk about this_. Patrick lives and dies a thousand hopeful deaths in that moment. Then Pete seems to shake himself and says, “Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.” Pete shrugs. “No big deal. Exactly.”

It’s a fairy tale, Patrick reminds himself. A fucking fairy tale. Guys like him don’t end up with movie stars. He needs to stop living in this fantasy.

“You can go down and wait for me,” Shane suggests to Pete. “I’ve got this covered.”

Pete stays still for a moment, looking at Patrick. Patrick doesn’t look back, because he _can’t_ , but he can feel Pete’s gaze on him, it’s hot and heavy, like panic. Pete croaks out, “Yeah, okay, good,” and flees the room.

Patrick looks at Shane and says with an admirable lack of emotion, “You can go, too.”

“You know,” Shane remarks, and does the opposite of leaving the room, striding further into it. “I do this a lot. Write the morning-after check. So don’t feel bad, kid. Everyone thinks they’re the special, different one. It’s not just you. Pete’s really good at acting the besotted part, huh?” Shane smiles at him widely and slaps a hand to Patrick’s chest. When he lets go, a check flutters its way to the ground. Patrick watches it settle there. He’s still looking at it when the door closes behind Shane.

Patrick leans down to pick the check up. It’s made out in the amount of million dollars. The “to:” line is blank.


	14. Chapter 14

Here’s what Pete wants: a different life. Pete always wants a different life but he wants one really badly right now. He’s tired of being Pete Wentz, he’s tired of being a movie star, he’s tired of Shane, he’s tired of the cameras in his face and the clamor for his attention. Pete is hiding in the alcove that leads to Patrick’s record store because once he steps into the store he will be seen and then…then his life will begin again. His life. This life he has. That’s decidedly not _here_.

“What are you doing?” Shane asks shortly, coming down the stairs behind him. “Did you think you were going to be able to hide forever?”

“You didn’t have to…” Pete starts, and trails off, because the list is long.

“Yeah, I fucking had to. I left you unsupervised for a week and look what happened. I might fire Andy. Come on.” Shane puts a hand on Pete’s elbow to tug him forward.

Pete resists. “You can’t fire Andy. This isn’t Andy’s fault.”

“No, it’s yours,” Shane agrees calmly. “Let’s _go_. We need to get this over with.”

Pete knows he’s right about that. So Pete takes a deep breath and tries a smile on for size.

“Too dick-sucking,” Shane assesses. “Bring it down a notch.”

Pete sighs and obeys.

“Good. Perfect. Let’s try not to look too sleazy the morning after your one-night stand. What’s up with your hair?”

Pete doesn’t want to explain how Patrick’s bathroom had no product, so Pete wrests his elbow out of Shane’s grip and walks confidently into the store, and then out into the crowd of paparazzi. Shane brought security with him, and they’ve got a path cleared for Pete to duck into the backseat of the waiting car. Shane ducks in after him, and the door closes, and Pete stops smiling.

“This is all fucking unnecessary.”

“Is it?” Shane snaps. “You’ve been difficult on set—”

“I haven’t been ‘difficult’ on set, the fucking director is a nightmare—”

“The production is behind schedule and bleeding money—”

“Because the _director_ is a _nightmare_.”

“—and now the lead in next year’s premiere romantic comedy just made headlines for taking a dick up the ass. Do you think this is going well?”

“Wow,” says Pete. “There is so much offensive about that, I don’t know where to start.”

“I know where to start. You need to keep your head down and stop pulling these attention-seeking stunts. What’s up with the acting out? Do I need to hire some girls to keep you occupied?”

“ _Shane_ ,” says Pete.

“Just trying to keep you happy, Petey.”

“No, you’re trying to—”

“Look, Pete, my job is to make sure you don’t do anything to fuck up the part where you make a lot of money, because left to your own devices, you always fuck up the part where you make a lot of money. Am I right, or am I right?” Shane gives him a hard look. “Where would you be without me, Petey?” His tone is like a stick clobbering Pete’s head.

Pete rubs a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted, and slumps back against the car seat. Because Shane is right: No one would care about Pete Wentz without the magic tricks Shane pulls to fool all of them. And right now, well, Pete doesn’t want this life Shane got him, but he doesn’t have any other life to go to. “Right,” Pete mumbles. “I know.”

“So why aren’t you happy? Why the temper tantrum? Hmm?”

Pete closes his eyes and shakes his head and says, “You shouldn’t have treated him like that.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t ‘like what’ me. You know exactly how you treated him, and he didn’t deserve that. He’s a nice guy.”

“He _was_ a nice guy, whose life you just ruined because you wanted someone else’s hand on your dick.”

That’s…undeniable. Pete leans his head against the window and wonders if he can fall asleep and miss the rest of Shane’s lecture.

“Have you been taking all your medications?” Shane asks.

“Sure,” Pete lies, because he’s smart enough to recognize when a medication is turning into an addiction, and Andy is smart enough to recognize that as well, and together they are definitely not letting Shane push Pete over that line.

“Hmm,” says Shane.

“Shane.” Pete opens his eyes to look at him. “I was lonely and homesick and I met a guy willing to put out. _Sorry_. It won’t happen again.”

“Aw, homesick? You should have said. Want a weekend back home?”

_Where do you think home is?_ Pete wants to ask.

***

Patrick stands staring at the check, feeling fury work its way up inside of him. Like, okay, fine, it’s one thing to be a one-night stand, Patrick got that, he understood that, Patrick could _handle_ that. Pete’s on the cover of fucking _W_ magazine, he’s not going to stay with Patrick, that’s obvious. But it is another thing _entirely_ to act as if Patrick only slept with Pete so he could tell the story to the press for money.

Patrick rips the check up, and then Patrick can’t stand to stay in his flat another second. It still fucking smells like sex, for fuck’s sake, Jesus fucking Christ, he stomps up to Vicky’s flat.

Vicky takes one look at him and says, “Oh, fuck, oh, no, that does not look like the face of a person here to tell me about his most recent brilliant orgasm.”

“He tried to pay me,” Patrick fumes. “Can you imagine? Called in his agent to write a fucking check. Have you heard anything so fucking insulting? Like he was going to walk out the door and I was going to call up _People_ and be like, ‘Hey, let me tell you about Pete Wentz’s dick’?”

“I mean,” says Vicky, all calm and reasonable because her heart hasn’t just been broken by a fucking movie star, “I think that says a lot more about the people Pete usually sleeps with than it does about you.”

Which…was a good point. Patrick stops to consider this. “Jesus, do you think people do that to him?”

“I know they do,” Vicky says drily. “He had a dick pic get leaked early in his career. That probably makes you a little distrustful of other humans.”

“He…” This is probably where knowledge of Pete Wentz would have come in handy, Patrick allows. “Oh.”

“So yeah. That probably wasn’t about you, Patrick. Do you want a cuppa?”

“Sure,” Patrick says faintly, still thinking through the implications of that as he sinks into Vicky’s couch. Pete, betrayed so often by the people he has sex with that he has an entire process in place to try to manage that. No wonder Pete didn’t say who he was the first night. No wonder Pete relished that. It must have been the first time he’d had sex in a long time without worrying about the headlines the next day.

“So he left?” Vicky sticks a mug in Patrick’s line of vision.

Patrick takes it automatically. “He left. His agent showed up and he left.”

“You didn’t take the money?”

Patrick gives her a look.

Vicky shrugs. “You could’ve donated it somewhere brilliant.”

“…Oh,” says Patrick. “I…was too angry to even think of that.” 

Vicky pats his shoulder, then walks over to the window and peers out of it. “The street is only half-full. He split the attacking army when he left. Think we can take the diminished force?”

Patrick takes a deep breath. “No, we’re not opening today. We should call Joe.”

“Oh, trust me, Joe already knows.”

“You’re such a gossip,” Patrick says.

“No, mate, you’re all over the internet.”

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick groans, “my _mom’s_ going to see that.”

“It’s kind of hot.”

“It’s not hot.”

“He looks like a good kisser. Better when it’s for real than when it’s for a movie.”

“Better…” Patrick stares at her. “Hang on, how do you know how he kisses ‘for real’?

“I told you.” Vicky takes out her phone and taps over it. “You’re all over the internet.” She turns it to face Patrick.

It’s a video, taken from far away but clearly him and Pete, standing in the doorway of the record store. As Patrick watches, the him on the video pulls Pete in for a kiss, shoves the hoodie off his head, and then it is unmistakably Pete Wentz kissing him back, shoving his hands down Patrick’s pants, they stumble into the record store locked together.

“See?” says Vicky. “It’s hot.”

“It was _private_ ,” Patrick says dully, staring at the last screen of the video, Patrick shutting the door to the record store. It was an incredible kiss, like no other kiss before his life, and now the entire planet is watching it play out for their own edification. That kiss had been _theirs_ , and now it’s _everyone’s_.

There’s a moment of silence before Vicky says, awkward and sincere, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have…” Vicky takes the phone out of Patrick’s hand and puts it aside. “I’m sorry.”

“This is so stupid,” Patrick says, and buries his face in the hand that’s not holding his cup of tea.

“You’ve lived here six months and I’ve never seen you interested in anyone, and you slept with Pete Wentz _twice_. Fuck, you really, really fancy him.” Vicky says it slowly, piecing the puzzle of Patrick together.

Patrick takes a shaky breath against the palm of his hand. He _really, really fancies him_. And he doesn’t even know what it was he liked: some phantasm who doesn’t really exist, who disappears in daylight. Some person he made up in his head.

Patrick lowers his hand and says, “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now.” Patrick takes a sip of his tea.


	15. Chapter 15

Pete is in Los Angeles.

This wasn’t exactly his choice but then again, most things in his life aren’t his choice anymore. Shane planned it and presented it as a _fait accompli_ and everyone around him seemed to think it was such a kind gift.

“You’ve looked a little exhausted,” Bebe told him. “A weekend at home sounds perfect. I’m going to go away, too.”

Great. He started a trend. The problem is: Los Angeles isn’t _home_.

Sure, he’s standing in his house at right this very moment, the one with his name on the deed. Oh, wait, no, not his name. His company’s name. Because Pete Wentz doesn’t own anything. Tax purposes, you see. Pete Wentz has nothing to his name. Pete Wentz barely has the shot of whiskey he’s holding to his name.

Pete, leaning on his balcony, lets go of the glass, watches it fall to the flagstone pool area below and shatter into a million pieces.

Luckily, none of the strangers on his patio even blink, because it’s that kind of raucous party. Also, they’re all crowded around the hot tub, that’s where all the action is, no one’s paying attention to the dark corner underneath the balcony off Pete’s bedroom.

“You’re hiding,” William says behind him disapprovingly.

Pete doesn’t even turn around. “Who the fuck _are_ all these people?”

“I don’t know.” William waves his hand around and comes to stand on the balcony next to Pete. “Bright young things. Andy told me to round some up, that you wanted a party.”

“Remember when we were bright young things?” Pete sighs.

“Yeah, you’re in the opposite mood from a party mood,” says William, and turns to lean back against the balcony and study Pete. “I don’t know what Andy was thinking. What’s up, Wentz? You’re awfully gloomy.”

Pete hesitates, then says, “That whole thing with the record store owner.”

“Yeah, that was a fucking mess for that poor dude, what were you thinking?”

Pete winces. It _has_ been a mess for Patrick. Pete had to stop tracking the catty analysis floating around the internet. And he doesn’t know how to say, _I don’t know, I felt drunk, I felt high, I wasn’t thinking at all_.

“Are you okay?” William asks, sincere and earnest.

Pete looks at the crowd in his hot tub and finds himself saying, “He was from Chicago.”

“Who?”

“The record store guy.”

“What are you, homesick? Go see your mom then, bro.” William gives him a playful little shove.

Maybe, Pete thinks, he is _deeply_ homesick. Maybe that’s what all this is.

“Okay,” Pete says, and pushes away from the balcony railing.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“My mom’s,” says Pete, walking over to his closet. It’s going to be cold in Chicago. He’s going to need a coat.

William appears in the doorway of the closet, while Pete is wading through the mess to the back, where Andy keeps the winter stuff. When Pete’s in residence in L.A., Andy keeps this closet in a much more organized fashion. William says, “What, _now_?”

Pete finds an old ski parka and pulls it out and on. “Right now. When else am I going to go? I’m due back in London the day after tomorrow.”

“Right, so you should go, I don’t know, _next_ weekend.”

Pete shrugs as he pushes past William. “Whatever, it’s on the way.”

“Christ,” says William, “you lead a weird life.”

“What is the fucking point of being a movie star, William?” asks Pete, and pulls out his phone to call Andy. “Yo,” he says, “I’m going to Chicago.”

***

Patrick isn’t having a fun time.

“You know what you get for fucking a movie star?” he says to Vicky. “This.”

He turns his laptop around so that Vicky can see it. They’re supposed to be working but Patrick can’t open his record store because people come in to tell him he’s an ugly loser who shouldn’t have fucked Pete Wentz. On the laptop is a photo of Patrick from his high school yearbook, with the charming caption, _Ew, look how fat he was! Gross, Pete!!!_

“You’d think it would be fun,” Patrick says. “I got to fuck one of the sexiest guys on the entire planet, right? _So much fun_.”

Vicky gives him a sympathetic look and says, “Fuck them.”

That is so easy to say. It’s so easy to say that Patrick’s been saying it a lot. But it’s another thing entirely to believe it. Instead that comment about him being fat is going to weigh on him all day.

The phone rings. The line Patrick has dedicated to the record store. Patrick doesn’t pick it up. “And another thing. This fucking phone keeps ringing off the hook. I can’t decide if I should change the number or not, but I’d have to make the new number public again, I’m running a _business_. Or trying to.” His phone chimes. “Oh, great, she left a message, let’s hear it.” He presses play, and a woman’s voice fills the room. _Who the fucking hell do you think you are? There are plenty of fit women out here who want to shag Pete Wentz, he didn’t need to settle for a knobhead like you_.

“Charming,” remarks Vicky after a second. “Can’t believe Pete hasn’t shagged her yet, given how charming she is.”

“This is a nightmare,” Patrick says. “This is an absolute nightmare. This is why I don’t have sex with people, okay? This is why I am ordinarily celibate. Look at what happens when you have sex with people!”

“Don’t talk about being celibate, no one will ever have sex with you again.”

“I don’t want anyone to have sex with me ever again. It’s exhausting and demoralizing. My _mother_ called to ask for details. My _mother_. I would like to die now.”

“This is a special situation,” Vicky says soothingly. “It’s not always like this after you have sex with someone. In the future, you should choose non-famous people to have sex with, yeah?”

_In the future_ , thinks Patrick, and honestly can’t think of a future. Where’s the future where he has sex with a person who isn’t Pete? It’s impossible to envision, and that’s alarming.

“Look,” Vicky continues, “it’s all going to get easier once he sleeps with someone else.”

That…does not sound like something that’s going to make things easier. _He was never yours to keep_ , Patrick reminds himself. _You were always just borrowing the fairy tale_. He says out loud, “Is it?” and it sounds dull even to his own ears. On his laptop is a Twitter thread of a gif of him kissing Pete, only he’s been replaced with a series of “actual hot people.” Wow, his life is fantastic right now.

“Stop,” Vicky says, and closes his laptop. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

“How?” asks Patrick. “Yesterday I tried to go out to buy toilet paper and my picture ended up on the wonderful Tumblr blog called ‘That Weird Record Store Guy Pete Wentz Fucked Looking Weird.’ If you let me turn my computer back on, I’d show you the picture. Look, I’ll show you—” Patrick reaches for his phone, and then freezes. Because there’s a reminder notification on it. _Dinner with Nigel and Verity_. “Oh, fuck,” he says.

“What now?” asks Vicky, in the voice of the long-suffering.

Patrick needs to pay her overtime for being his friend this weekend. He shows her the phone. “I totally forgot.”

Vicky makes an eloquent face. “Ugh, don’t go. They’re only going to ask you tons of questions about Pete Wentz.”

“They’ll talk to me about how I’ve brought further shame to the family,” replies Patrick. “The first shame being the fact that I’m American, of course.”

“You’ve got to fuck Stephen Fry, if you’re going for famous blokes. That they’ll respect.”

“Please take that back,” says Patrick, “I’m never going to recover.”


	16. Chapter 16

Pete actually doesn’t go back to Chicago much. The problem is he feels  _ pressure _ there. Not really from his mom, because his mom’s amazing, but from the  _ fact _ of it. Chicago is where he was young, Chicago is where he dreamed of getting out, Chicago is where he determined to achieve superstardom at whatever the cost,  and so, having gone to a lot of trouble to do that, he always feels like he needs to pretend it was worth it when he’s in Chicago. He knows that everyone in the old neighborhood views him enviously: the  hot young things on his arm at  prestigious events,  the invitations to private islands,  all those tales of Hollywood excess. He can’t show up here and be tired and broken like the pathetic human he is. 

So he doesn’t go back to Chicago much. Too busy, he says.  Flying too high all the time. Too much expensive booze to down , expensive clothing to ruin, expensive people to fuck.  He flies his mom out for expensive island vacations and she always smiles and says kindly ,  _ This is nice, dear _ , standing on a balcony jutting out over the  Indian Ocean like  she would have been just as happy a t Navy fucking Pier. 

“You can’t stay here long,” Andy says worriedly,  waiting for their black car to show up, because Pete Wentz can’t just take a  goddamn Uber like everyone else in Chicago. 

It’s cold enough that Pete has the hood of his parka pulled up, and no one seems to be noticing him. He says to Andy, “I know, I heard you the first time.” 

“It’s just—”

“Andy, no one’s firing you. I’ll be on  the first flight out to London tomorrow , just like I’m supposed to be. I promise.”

Andy gives him a look. “Really?” 

“ _ Really _ ,” Pete says. 

Andy, after a moment, says,  “This is a better idea than L.A. , though.” 

“That’s because Shane’s a massive idiot,” says Pete. 

Andy makes a noncommittal noise. 

The black car pulls up , and Andy hurries forward to check it’s the right driver and Pete isn’t about to be kidnap p ed.  Pete slides into the backseat without waiting for the okay because he lives life on the edge. 

Andy opens the back door. “This is the right car.”

“Good,” says Pete. 

“I’ll pick you up in…” Andy looks at his watch. “Twenty-two hours.” 

Pete nods. 

Andy looks at him again. 

Pete’s not sure what he’s waiting for. “Thank you?” he offers, because maybe he is being rude. 

“You’re going to be okay, right?” Andy says. 

“I’m going to see my mom,” Pete says. “I’m going to be  _ fine _ .” 

And Pete does feel appreciably better as the car sets off.  Chicago is in the bustling version of a late autumn predawn, when the day gets underway in the  dark, and even though Pete’s constantly  in cities,  _ this _ city  lets him unravel, in a good way.  The air smells elementally familiar, like his lungs know how to breathe it better. The people on the street, in the other cars, look like maybe he could know them, maybe he grew up with them, or grabbed pizza at the same place once upon a time.  He is, for a moment, not Pete Wentz , but just Pete. 

It’s kind of startlingly the way he felt with Patrick . Maybe William’s right. Maybe Pete was just homesick all along. 

The car pulls up to his  mom’s house, still the same modest  beige 1970s  thing he grew up in. Pete’s offered again and again to buy her another one, a better one, maybe closer to the lake instead of the highway , and she demurs. Pete understands these days how much it must have hurt his mother to have a son who couldn’t wait to get  _ out _ . Maybe she’ll be happy to see how much he wants back in at the moment. 

Pete thanks the driver and slings his backpack over his shoulder. The neighbor next door is walking out to h er car , h er  overcoat flapping around h er  ankles,  a glove clenched between her teeth as she does something on her phone, her other hand clutching a travel mug. She does a double-take at him. She’s a newer neighbor, and all the neighbors know this is Pete Wentz’s old haunting ground, but he’s not a visitor  often  enough to have them inured to his presence. He gives her a wave and  resigns himself to this Chicago jaunt being all over the internet in five-four-three-two-one. 

The time it takes his mother to answer the door. 

She’s  still in her pajamas , because of course, why would she be up at this hour, she’s got no traffic to fight to a job in the city. She looks curious when she opens the door, and then startled. “Peter,” she exclaims. 

“You shouldn’t open the door without seeing who it is first,” Pete chides her. “It could be all sorts of—” He runs out of steam suddenly. “It could be—” He takes another gasping breath, wondering what’s wrong with him. 

“Oh, Pete, darling,” she murmurs,  and pulls him in and shuts the door, and suddenly he’s sobbing into his  mother’s neck , and he honestly doesn’t know what to make of this, he’s like,  _ What the fuck, Pete? _ at himself.

But his mother  does not say that.  His mother holds him close and lets him cry and whooshes soothingly into his ear, petting at his hair.  “There, there,” she says. “There, there. It’s okay.  You’re home now.  You’re home.” 

And he  _ feels _ it, at that moment ,  clutches at her and wants to never leave. 

When he’s silent against her, she says, “Do you want  breakfast?” and he just nods against her now-wet neck. 

His mother makes pancakes and keeps up a running commentary on what’s been happening in the neighborhood.  Mr. Galbraith has been moved into a home,  the Gallaghers are adding a  second floor,  the city hasn’t fixed the pothole on the corner and winter’s coming up agai n, there’s a dead tree across the street that’s definitely going to fall in the first big storm. 

Pete sits and eats his pancakes, smothered in butter and syrup, and makes little  responsive  noises, and then his mother says, “When’s the last time you slept?” 

Pete thinks. “I… ” It might have been at Patrick’s  apartment . “London,” he decides. 

“Did you fly all night?” his mother tsks at him. 

_ Two consecutive nights _ ,  he doesn’t say, because his mother already looks disapproving. 

“Go to bed,” she says, clearing his empty plate for him. 

He suddenly really wants to go to bed.  He collapses into his old twin bed in his old bedroom and he fucking  _ sleeps _ . He sleeps like it’s a contact sport.  When he wakes up it’s  mid- afternoon and someone is running a leaf-blower somewhere on the street and there’s the hum of the television from down the hall. Pete stretches  and looks around his room. His mother hasn’t touched it. There’s still a poster of  John Koviak on the ceiling. Pete should have figured out he was bi a lot sooner than he did, he thinks. 

He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face and feels marginally better, and then  goes in search of his mother. She’s in the family room , with CSPAN on the television and a massive quilt spread out on the floor. All of the furniture has been pushed to the edge of the room to accommodate it. 

His mother’s always been an artist but the quilts are a new thing. Pete’s never seen one in progress before. He never really thought through  how massive  they are when underway. 

“It’s pretty,” he says. 

His mother smiles without really looking  up from  whatever she’s doing with it.  “Thank you.” 

Pete drops sideways onto the couch so as not to disturb the quilt and looks at the television. “Is this really what you’re watching ?” 

His mother looks at him and says gently, “So what happened?” 

Pete’s breath hitches. He feels like an idiot. He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with his brain that he can’t just get things together. He says, “I want to come home.” 

“You can always come home, you know that,” his mother says matter-of-factly. “ But are you sure that’s what you want? You hate it here.” She gives him an arch look. 

“I love it here!” he protests. 

“Pete, you couldn’t wait to leave. Your first word was ‘go.’ Said so hopefully. ‘Go, go, go,’ that’s always what you wanted. ” 

“Yeah, but maybe I was…” He falters. “I don’t know.  Maybe I was wrong? ” 

“Peter, what you’re looking for, it’s never been here.” 

“What am I looking for?” he asks. Maybe she knows, because he sure as fuck doesn’t. 

“ I don’t know,” she says, dashing his hopes.  “But whatever it is, you haven’t found it yet.” 

_ No shit _ , he thinks, but he doesn’t say it because he doesn’t want to be rude. He sighs heavily and looks up at the ceiling, feeling very sorry for himself. 

“Or maybe,” his mother continues, in the uber-casual tone of voice of someone who is about to say something important. “Maybe you  _ have _ found it.” 

Pete draws his eyebrows together in a frown as he glances over at her. 

She’s still fiddling with her quilt, as she continues calmly, “ Everyone Facebook messages me when you make the news, you know.  It happens a lot. I don’t know why they think any mother wants to know that much about her son’s sex life, but what are you going to do?” 

“Delete your Facebook,” Pete says, horrified. 

His mother shrugs. “The point is,  you’ve been through a lot of scandals. And this is the first time—literally the first time—you’ve ever come home after one of them .” His mother finally puts down her quilt and meets his eyes. 

Pete stares at her. He doesn’t know what to say. 

So his mother keeps talking.  “He seems like a nice young man. He likes music?” 

“Yes,” Pete manages breathlessly. 

“How did you meet him?” 

“I  was buying records,” says Pete. “And he was…” And now that someone has finally asked, now that he gets to tell  t his story, he finds he has a lot to say, he can’t say it fast enough. “He was so nice. He was so—well, not really. I mean. He’s a little prickly but it’s this good prickly, it’s this…it’s this  _ sweet _ prickly , he was just really nice, he ’s from Chicago, too, and he had Lucky Charms , he kept making me Lucky Charms, and coffee,  and he left me a note, Mom, this silly little note, he was funny, and  he looked at me like … I forgot … Maybe I never knew … How… I don’t know.” He’s not sure this is at all coherent. 

His mother doesn’t look at all alarmed. She smiles at him and says, “He  sounds lovely.” 

“It was like… It was like being drunk. It was like being high. Only, like,  _ better _ .” 

“It was like being in love,” says his mother . 

And Pete crashes over a metaphorical goddamn cliff. It was like being in love. He knew him two fucking nights. But it doesn’t matter: He was in love after one. He was in love after  _ thirty fucking seconds _ . And he knew it all along. He just needed someone not a complete disaster to say those words for him. 

His mother says, “Peter Wentz, you need to call that young man .” 


	17. Chapter 17

Patrick has this belief: If things are going to be fucking awful, then you might as well embrace it. Like, he’s in the middle of a truly awful week. Who knew that arguably the best sex of his life would cause the worst week of it? This is probably why U.S. schools teach abstinence, thinks Patrick, morosely, as he trudges his way to his stepsister’s horrible townhouse for this horrible dinner.

A few paparazzi took his picture as he left the record store but they seem to be second-rate paparazzi. The world’s moved on. _Pete’s_ moved on, so the world’s moved on. Patrick knew it would blow over eventually. But in the meantime, there’s still going to be at least one tweet about him leaving the record store and someone will say how ugly his trench coat is and why is he wearing a fedora.

One of the paparazzi tailed him onto the Tube and is still behind him now, as if Patrick’s heading for some kind of hot assignation with some other A-list celebrity.

“Look,” Patrick throws over his shoulder, “ordinarily I don’t hang out with anyone interesting.”

The paparazzi snorts. “Yeah, that’s bloody obvious, mate.”

“Whatever,” Patrick mutters, and walks up the steps to Verity’s townhouse and rings the bell smartly.

The paparazzi takes his picture.

Patrick throws him a middle finger.

That’s going to be another picture, but whatever. It’s not like he’s the darling of the internet, so he might as well lean into the disdainful comments about him.

Verity opens the door and gives him an exaggerated pout. “Patrick,” she says. “Darling. How _are_ you holding up?” She hugs him close and pats his shoulder. “There, there, there,” she says.

“I’m fine,” Patrick says, limp in her embrace. He doesn’t want to squirm out of it because he knows it won’t be successful anyway.

She puts him at arms-length, hands tight on his shoulders, and says, “ _Are_ you?” Her bottom lip is turned out like she’s a preschool teacher and he just skinned his knee.

Patrick is so uncomfortably aware of the paparazzi still on the street behind him. “Can we maybe—”

“Patrick!” Verity’s husband Paget says jovially. “How are you, boyo? Verity, let him come inside, he’s letting in the cold.”

Patrick ducks gratefully inside, closing the door behind him. “I’m fine,” he says.

“No, no, you have had quite the couple of days, Verity and I have been anxious to hear of it, haven’t we, Verity?”

“Honestly,” Verity says, “I always thought Pete Wentz was lying when he said he was bisexual. Good publicity, you know?”

“Is he lying?” asks Paget keenly.

Patrick doesn’t know how to answer that. “About?”

“Being bisexual. Could you tell if he’d been with men before? You can tell, right?”

“Can we not talk about this?” asks Patrick.

“Patrick!” his stepbrother Nigel booms from the back of the house. “Come in here, I have important investment decisions for you to make!”

Patrick has never been so happy to discuss investments. He flees to the back of the house. Verity and Paget’s two kids, Phoebe and Flora, are watching _Peppa Pig_ and don’t look up at him at all. Nigel is at the breakfast bar, well into his mumble-teenth glass of Scotch, no doubt. He gestures Patrick over to him expansively and says, “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. This is important.” He floats his finger around Patrick’s face. “Can you get me Pete Wentz as a client?”

“No,” Patrick says between gritted teeth.

“Patrick doesn’t want to talk about Ete-pay Entz-way,” Paget says, and then, “How was my pig Latin?” He seems to be asking Patrick, as if Patrick is the arbiter of pig Latin.

“Fine,” Patrick says. “Can we, I don’t know, _eat_?”

“Yes,” Verity says. “Yes, come eat. Poppets! Come and eat!”

The children eat while watching Peppa Pig. Patrick wants to join them. Peppa is going on holiday. It looks much more interesting than the conversation around the dining table, which is something impenetrable about British politics.

Here’s the thing: Patrick met all of these people for the very first time six months ago when his father died. His father had never really maintained close enough contact with Patrick for Patrick to have known anything about this British family. Patrick lived in Chicago and had no reason to take any interest in these random stepsiblings. And then his dad died and somehow, inexplicably, Patrick inherited a building in London and then his latest band broke up and he thought, _Fuck it_ , what was keeping him in America, so he moved across the ocean. And for whatever reason, Verity and Nigel decided they needed to adopt him as if they really were _family_.

“How’s the record business?” asks Nigel suddenly.

“Fine,” says Patrick shortly, because he doesn’t want to get into it.

“You know,” Verity says, “I still think you should let me add a nail bar.”

Patrick says, “I just don’t think that works with my business scheme.”

“Patrick doesn’t want all those women in his shop, Verity,” Paget says.

“No,” Patrick says, “it’s not about the women, it’s just, you know, it’s a serious music place.”

“And women don’t seriously like music?” Verity demands.

“No, they do, they—I’ve had a long week and I’m tired. Can we just not?” Patrick’s had everything about him be analyzed endlessly all week. He wants to not do that tonight.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s bloody exhausting shagging a movie star,” says Paget, and he and Nigel snicker.

“Frankly, it is,” Patrick snaps at them. “Have you looked at social media for even half a second? I had to shut down the store’s Facebook page because it was getting flooded with too many homophobic slurs. I’ve had every aspect of every iteration of me examined critically. A lot of people want to know why I never switched from glasses to contacts.” Patrick’s phone rings in his pocket. “Oh, yeah, that’s another thing,” he continues, as he pulls it out of his pocket. “An alarming number of people feel that it’s appropriate behavior to call a place of business and criticize the kissing technique of its proprietor.” Patrick frowns at the unknown number on his cell phone. “And now they’ve started calling my cell phone, too.” He rejects the call viciously, wondering how they even got the number, and then not wondering, because everything’s available somewhere on the internet.

There’s a moment of silence around the table.

Paget ventures, “For what it’s worth, I thought you looked like a fabulous kisser, Patrick.”

“That’s a weird thing to say, Paget,” Verity tells him quietly.

“Yeah, that was weird,” Nigel agrees.

Patrick’s phone chimes with a voicemail. “Oh, look,” he says, “they left a voicemail, of course they did, they always do. Wait until you hear this. This is what I’ve been dealing with.” Patrick presses play on the voicemail.

Patrick presses play and _Pete fucking Wentz’s voice_ starts talking. “Patrick,” it says. “Hi. It’s, um, Pete.”

Verity and Nigel and Paget all look at Patrick.

Patrick, wide-eyed, scrambles to try to get the phone off speaker.

“Look,” Pete’s voice continues, “I get it if you never want to talk to me again, you’d be completely justified, not that you have to have a reason, you could—”

Patrick manages _finally_ to get the voicemail to stop playing.

Verity and Nigel and Paget just sit and look at him.

Flora calls from the coffee table in front of the television, “Was that Sam-I-Am?”

“He voiced _Green Eggs and Ham_ ,” Verity explains off of Patrick’s blank expression. “You know, the version Pixar put out last year?”

“Does _everyone_ know who he is?” Patrick asks in despair.

“Why does he think you shouldn’t want to talk to him again?” Nigel asks. “You should _definitely_ want to talk to him. And you should ask him if he needs a new financial advisor.”

“I’m not…” Patrick shakes his head, staring at his phone. The voicemail icon is still active. A voicemail from Pete. When he was honestly just starting to convince himself he was never going to talk to Pete ever again. Like, yeah, _any minute now_ he was going to start believing that.

“He looked like a good kisser, too,” says Paget.

“Still a weird thing to say,” Verity inserts softly.

“Yeah, get it together, Paget,” says Nigel.

Patrick just sits staring at his phone.

Verity says, “So are you going to listen to the rest of it?”

Patrick feels hot and cold all over. Patrick thinks… No, Patrick _knows_. Patrick _knows_ : If he listens to this voicemail, he’ll say yes. Whatever Pete wants, he’ll say yes. And then Pete will leave again and the next time it will hurt _more_. And the next time. And the next time.

“Fuck,” Patrick says, and closes his eyes. “I need to go home.”


	18. Chapter 18

Pete’s mom tells him to call Patrick like it’s easy. He doesn’t have Patrick’s number.

He does have the number of the record store. Everyone in the universe has the number of the record store at this point. It’s all over Twitter. People are mounting campaigns to tell Patrick to stay away from Pete.

Pete winces and tweets out, _Yo. Leave Patrick and his record store alone_ , and hopes that might help a little bit. It’s probably more likely to incite people who will see it as further Patrick favoritism. Fans can be weird, in that sometimes they want you to be happy but only with the very particular person they’ve deemed permissible.

Then Pete calls the record store. It rings many times, and he doesn’t think to wonder what time it is until that moment. Then he glances at his watch. Early evening in London. The store’s definitely still open. But it clicks over to voicemail, and Pete assumes Patrick’s given up answering the phone.

Pete sighs and leaves a message. “Patrick. It’s Pete. I’m sorry about…this whole thing. I mean. Fuck.” Pete pinches the bridge of his nose. He probably should have planned this out first. He should have written out a script. He’s no good without a script. “Pretend this is really, like, eloquent, or whatever. Anyway. This is my number. And I’d, um, I’d love to talk.” He leaves his number. He hangs up the phone. He looks at the ceiling over his head. He says to the John Koviak poster on the ceiling, “Patrick is never going to call me back.”

He gets off his bed and finds his mother in the kitchen, where he slumps into a chair at the breakfast bar. “Patrick is never going to call me back,” he says morosely, and puts his head down on his arms on the counter.

“Of course he will,” his mother says soothingly. “Let me make you some hot cocoa.”

Like he’s a child. But it does sound good. “Okay,” he mumbles into his arms. “I left him a very stupid message.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t stupid.”

“No, it was—” Pete’s phone rings. Pete sits up so quickly he almost falls off the chair, stares at the London number calling him back. “Oh, my God,” he breathes, and goes running out of the room. He trips over his backpack rushing into his bedroom and falls onto the bed, so that the breath is knocked out of him when he manages to say, “Hello?”

“Um,” says a female voice who’s not Patrick. “Pete? Mr. Wentz? Sorry, I’m not sure what our acquaintance is.”

“Pete’s fine,” says Pete automatically, because everyone calls him Pete. “Sorry, who’s this?”

“Vicky,” she replies. “Patrick’s friend.”

“Right,” Pete realizes. “Right, right. Patrick’s friend.” Pete swallows. “Did he have you call me to let me down easy?” He feels very bad for himself, frankly.

“No, I’m handling the record store phone right now. People haven’t been nice to him. Or to me.” Vicky’s tone isn’t forgiving.

It reminds him that things are much, much worse for Patrick than they are for Pete. “Sorry. I’m sorry. That was never my intention, I—”

“You’ve got him all fucked up, you know it?” says Vicky. “I mean, seriously, what the _fuck_?”

Pete squeezes his eyes shut and wants to crawl under the mattress, under the bed, under the house, under the earth. He says, “I know, I know, I know, I… I know.” He has no defense, he has nothing to say. Vicky’s right, he can’t believe he let his mother make him think he had any right to call Patrick.

Vicky goes on, “You can’t keep doing this to him. He doesn’t fuck around. You know what I mean, mate? He goes all in. How are you at that?” She asks it knowingly.

Vicky knows about him, of course. So much more than Patrick knows. Vicky’s read all of his press, Pete can hear it in the tone of her voice. He says, aching and honest, “I want to be better at it. I really, really do.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then Vicky says, “Fuck it, I’m going to give you his number and if you make me regret this, I will find a way to spread the most devastating rumor about you on social media.”

“I believe you,” Pete says, because he does, and then he takes down Patrick’s cell phone number.

It’s a Chicago number.

Something about that calms Pete. This is the guy from Evanston who flirted with him in a record store and is sweet and snarky and maybe would have let Pete stay forever if Pete hadn’t fled, like, this is _that guy_ , Pete’s just got to reach out and grab him here.

Pete pulls a notebook out from under the bed. He’s always had notebooks stashed all over his house. And Pete writes himself a script.

***

The paparazzi, thankfully, got bored, so no one’s there to see Patrick stumble out of Verity’s house, swing his way into a passing cab. He’s not recognized, thank God. He can’t believe his life is now worrying he’s going to be recognized. His phone is burning a hole in his pocket. He desperately wants to pull it out and listen to the rest of the voicemail, but he doesn’t really know what it’s going to be and he doesn’t really know what his reaction’s going to be and none of it should be happening in public.

Eventually he makes it back into his apartment and he doesn’t even turn on the lights, he just pulls his phone out of his pocket and hits play.

“Patrick. Hi. It’s, um, Pete. Look, I get it if you never want to talk to me again, you’d be completely justified, not that you have to have a reason, you could just not want to talk to me—I want you to know that I wrote a script so I wouldn’t ramble like this, so let me get back on the script, which said: Patrick. Hi. It’s Pete. Yes, I wrote that in my script, I was worried that I would—Never mind. Patrick. Hi. It’s Pete. I get it if you never want to talk to me again, you’d be completely justified, but…” Pete breathes. Patrick clings to his phone so hard it hurts and listens to Pete breathe.

Then Pete says, “Oh, fuck it, this script is terrible, it’s... I'm sorry. You have no reason to ever talk to me again but I’d really love it if you would, I...” Pete takes a deep breath, says so very softly, “This is probably the last thing I’m ever going to say to you, so I want it to be this: I really, really like you, Evanston.”

And then he hangs up.

That’s it, that’s the message.

Patrick gasps for breath. He didn’t realize he was holding it. Patrick gasps for breath and staggers into his apartment, because he never made it farther than the door. He sinks to the floor next to his guitar and he listens to the message again.

“What the fuck,” he whispers. It sounds very loud in his silent apartment. On the street outside, a car goes by.

Patrick looks at his guitar but it doesn’t seem to have anything to say.

Patrick would say that he needs advice, except he knows the only advice he wants to hear: He wants to be told that he should call Pete back. And that’s stupid. That’s idiotic. He should not call Pete back. Pete has made his life _hell_.

Patrick calls Pete back.

Because Pete really, really likes him. And all Patrick can hear is Vicky’s voice saying basically the same to Patrick: Patrick really, really fancies Pete.

Fuck it. Patrick _really, really likes_ Pete. 

Pete answers immediately, breathlessly, with, “Patrick?”

Patrick realizes, in a panic, that he has no idea what he wants to say. So he says the first thing he can think of. Which is: “Hi.”

“Hi,” responds Pete.

And then that’s it for a second. There’s just silence.

Pete says, “I didn’t think you would—I wasn’t sure if you would—Thank you for calling me back. Like, thank you _so much_ for—You should have hung up. You shouldn’t have even listened to the message.”

“Why?” asks Patrick, because he needs Pete to keep talking, he’s not together enough to carry on a conversation at the moment.

“Because I’ve ruined your life. I’ve been an asshole. I ran out on you _twice_. Patrick, I’m the worst.”

“You are,” Patrick agrees. He crawls up onto the couch to get comfortable, because Pete’s voice is… Pete’s voice is _Pete’s voice_. Patrick’s been living with the Pete who’s a celebrity, the Pete who got him thrown onto Twitter, the Pete whose mention makes everyone feel entitled to judge who he should be fucking. But Pete’s voice in his ear reminds him that that Pete is so very different than the one Patrick knew. And the Pete Patrick knows is talking to him right now. And Patrick finds himself sinking into it. Patrick wants to… Patrick wants to _tease._

There’s a moment of silence. Pete ventures hesitantly, “You don’t want to protest even a little bit?”

Patrick tries to bite back his smile. “Nope. Keep groveling, Wilmette.”

He hears the difference that makes in Pete, the use of the nickname. His voice is warmer when he responds, more sure of himself. “Hey, I’m in Chicago right now.”

“Chicago or Wilmette?” Patrick asks.

“Wilmette.”

“Why are you there? Is your movie done?” Patrick’s surprised at his disappointment. Like Pete’s going to propose hanging out in London? Like Patrick _wants_ to hang out with him in London? No more hanging out with Pete Wentz, look what it’s gotten him so far. Or so he tries to remind himself.

“No, I… I think I came to Chicago to figure out how to find you.” Pete says it playfully, Patrick can envision the way the flirt would gleam in his eyes.

“Oh, did you? What a great line, was that in your script?”

Pete laughs.

“Did you figure out that you can find me in London?” Patrick asks drily.

“Yeah,” Pete says softly. “I did. Called you and everything.”

Patrick takes a deep breath. He says, “Stunning detective work. How’d you get my number?”

“Left a message at the record store. Vicky called me back. Threatened me a lot, but gave me your number.”

“Take those threats seriously, Vicky’s terrifying,” says Patrick.

“Noted.”

“So,” says Patrick. He says, with as much casualness as he can manage, “You tracked me down, now what do you intend to do with me?”

“Is there any way I can convince you to see me again?” asks Pete.

Patrick closes his eyes. Patrick tries to keep his heart from beating its way out of his chest. “What’s your offer?”

“Dinner. Somewhere private. No one will know. I’m sorry about the...whole thing.”

Patrick keeps his eyes closed. He says, “What happens the morning after this dinner?”

“Oh,” says Pete, “are we already talking about the morning? Are you going to put out after this dinner? Awesome.”

_The thing is_ , Patrick thinks, _when you sleep, you look like you’re mine, and it kills me when you wake up and you’re not_. He can’t say that. And, honestly, he shouldn’t do this, not when he knows that he can’t keep it casual, and that Pete can’t do anything _but_ casual. It’s not like... It’s not like this hot movie star guy is about to fall in love with _him_. This all has an expiration date, and every time that expiration date arrives, it kills him a little more. He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t even be on this telephone call.

Pete says into his silence, seriously, losing his facetious tone, “How about you see if you still like me after dinner?”

“Who says I like you now?” Patrick asks, hoping he sounds flippant and fun.

“Your dick says you like me now,” Pete replies.

Which startles Patrick out of his introspection. “Jesus Christ,” Patrick complains, “what kind of ridiculous thing was that to say?”

“I don’t know,” says Pete, sounding devilish on the other end, “ask your dick.”

“I’m so hanging up with you now.”

“Wait, can I talk to your dick for a second first?”

“No,” says Patrick, “I’m rethinking everything about this, I’m no longer going to dinner with you.”

“Your dick can come to dinner with me,” says Pete, unflaggable.

“You know, I read this article that said you were the world’s most eligible bachelor, clearly written by someone who’s never had a conversation with you.”

Pete laughs. “I’m going to sweep you off your fucking feet in London,” he promises.

“Yeah? While you’re paying all this attention to my feet, what’s my dick going to be doing?” counters Patrick.

The way Pete brays laughter... Patrick goes to sleep that night with the memory of that galloping endlessly through him.

The next time Pete leaves him is going to _suck_.


	19. Chapter 19

Pete can’t stop smiling. It’s what his mother tells him when he emerges from his bedroom. 

“Patrick says he’ll let me take him to dinner,” Pete explains happily. 

“See, I told you that your young man would be nice to you. He seems very sweet.” 

Patrick isn’t Pete’s anything at the moment, and Pete’s bad at putting a label on what he thinks Patrick might be, like, he might jinx it if he thinks about it, but he’s going to see Patrick again, and honestly the rest of this nightmarish movie in London seems doable if he can see Patrick a lot. 

“You know,” his mother remarks, “that’s not a look I’ve seen on your face in a while.”

Pete doesn’t remember the last time he met  _ anyone _ who made him feel the way Patrick does, which might be ridiculous but is also true. 

But his mother gives him pause when she continues, “You look like you won’t mind getting out of bed tomorrow morning.” 

And Pete…supposes that it  _ has _ been a while since he felt like getting out of bed in the morning. 

Patrick makes him want to get out of bed. 

That’s pretty fucking terrifying. 

“What if he doesn’t…” The fear  steals his oxygen, leaves him wordless. 

His mother, calmly emptying the dishwasher, says, “He likes you a  _ lot _ . You’ve made his life hell, and he called you back. ” She glances at him. “He likes you, Pete. ” 

_ He likes you _ . That’s not a thing that really happens to him these days.  Liking _ him _ . He says, to remind himself, or to remind the universe in general, “He had no idea who I was.” 

“Right,” his mother replies readily. “Exactly. He likes you.” 

It seems so simple but Pete has never been able to enjoy anything simple. 

And, when he leaves his mother’s house to go to the airport, sitting in the back of the car with Andy, his social media check makes that clear.  The conversation around Patrick is relentless. There’s speculation about everything about him: is that his real hair , has he had plastic surgery, are his glasses fake .  W hen Pete comes across a detailed timeline of Patrick’s weight, he loses it and tweets out  _ Hey _ _ , kids:  _ _ Give Patrick a rest, please. The answer to every question you have about him is _ _ that it’s none of your business. _

He doesn’t know how Patrick is dealing, he doesn’t know why Patrick is still speaking to him. 

He shuts his phone off because he doesn’t want to have to deal with it anymore and says abruptly, cutting off something Andy’s saying about  the scenes scheduled for tomorrow, “I’m taking Patrick to dinner. I don’t want any commentary about it, and I don’t want you calling Shane, okay?”  Pete gives Andy a harsh look. 

Andy, after a moment, says, “No commentary from me. I’ve changed my position on Patrick.” 

“Oh? ” Pete lifts his eyebrows, employing his most dubious expression. “ You no longer think he’s out to get me?”

“No. He hasn’t leaked a single thing about you yet. Not that I can see.” 

“Maybe he’s playing the long game. Maybe he’s going to leak all the juicy stuff he’s going to learn at dinner with me.” 

“I doubt it,” Andy deadpans. “You’re not that great a conversationalist.”

After a pause, Pete decides to give Andy a break and rejoins in kind, “ True, h e already knows the most important thing about me, and that’s how enormous my dick is.” 

“Uh-huh,” Andy agrees. “Where are you taking him to dinner?” 

“I don’t know. Somewhere quiet. I promised him quiet. No paparazzi.” 

“Your suite?” Andy suggests. 

Pete makes a face. “No, I’m pretending to be classy,  I don’t want to woo him ten feet from my bed.” 

“Are you wooing him?” Andy  sounds perplexed, intrigued .

Because Pete has never really  taken anyone on a date in over a decade. His life hasn’t been conducive to that. 

“I don’t know.” Pete shifts uncomfortably. “I want to… I want to make him not tired of me. For a while. Is that wooing?” 

“Do you know how to woo?” Andy asks skeptically. 

“I starred in the highest-grossing romantic comedy  _ of all time _ ,” Pete retorts. 

“You can’t learn how to woo from romcoms, the men woo by stalking in romcoms.” 

True. Pete frowns. “I know how to woo. I can woo just fine. I’ve been wooing him so far.” He says it confidently to cover up how anxious he is. Maybe he knows nothing about wooing. Andy’s right: Pete’s never even  _ had _ to  woo, everyone just falls in his lap. 

Andy interrupts Pete’s fretting to say, “You know I was only looking out for you, right? Like, it’s my entire job to look out for you. I’m glad for your sake he turned out to be a decent guy.” 

Pete wants to explain that it wasn’t Andy looking out for him that cut him so deeply, it was Andy’s display of obvious condescension toward Pete’s judgment. Sure, Pete h as made many a terrible, horrific decision in his day, that c a n’t be denied, but still. He’d like to not be made to feel like a complete idiot. 

Andy adds, “And you were the one who made me call Shane. Just for the record.” 

Pete sighs.  He looks out the window of the car. He thinks about wooing Patrick. 

Goddamn it, he is going to fuck this up in every possible way. 

***

It’s Sunday. The record store opens late on Sundays. Sundays are ordinarily Patrick’s day to revert back to his preferred sleep schedule of  waking up many hours after the sun has risen .  But this Sunday  Patrick wakes earlier than usual with a pleasant buzz of anticipation thrumming through him. They didn’t say when their date would take place, but he’s confident there’s going to be one. He trusts Pet e. Well. He trusts this much of Pete.  He trusts that the Pete who  s tubbornly tracked him down is going to take him to dinner at some point. So he trusts that he hasn’t yet had his last kiss with Pete Wentz.  And the anticipation of the next one, at some hazy foggy future time, gets him out of bed and up to  Vicky’s apartment. 

Vicky opens  the door  yawning, with her hair sticking up  on the side of her head. “What bloody time is it?”  she complains. 

“Did you give Pete Wentz my number yesterday?” asks Patrick, trying to be stern. 

“Yes.” Vicky flourishes a warning finger at him. “And don’t even  get stroppy about it ,  it seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

Patrick smiles warmly. He can’t help it. On this  particular morning , he feels like he’s walking on air. Pete has so much more to do with this than Patrick would like. None of this is wise and all of this is foolish and he doesn’t  fucking care, he’s not sure he’s ever felt exactly this expectantly carefree and he just wants to enjoy it while it lasts. “Good idea. It was a good idea. Thank you, Victoria.” He kisses her cheek. 

Vicky stares at him. “What the fuck has got into you?” 

“Do you want coffee? I can run down to the coffee shop and get us some.” 

“Oh, my God, Pete Wentz got into you! Right! Of course! That’s why you—that’s how you—sorry, you woke me up, I’m just catching up to this conversation. What did he  _ say _ ? Hang on, hang on,  I do need coffee, I want to hear all about it but I need coffee, let’s go.” Vicky pulls a hoodie on. 

Patrick  narrows his eyes. “Is that Pete’s hoodie?” 

“Listen, mate,  if you found a celebrity’s hoodie suddenly in your possession, you’d wear it all the time, too.”  She loc ks her door and  sa ys , “Okay, now, tell me all about your conversation. What did he say?” 

“Nothing,” says Patrick awkwardly, following her down the stairs. 

“ Oooh , was it phone sex?” Vicky asks, sending a  leer over her shoulder at him. “You totally had phone sex with Pete Wentz last night, you naughty lad.” 

“We didn’t have phone sex,” Patrick protests, wincing at even having to say it. 

“You’re in this good of a mood and it’s not even post-orgasmic?  The man’s magic,” Vicky announces. 

They step outside together. There’s a scattered group of photographers and onlookers and they shout at him but it bothers him less than it did  before  because, hey, these come with  _ Pete _ and… at the moment, Patrick’s willing to put up with that for Pete. 

He tugs his fedora down against the  drizzly mist in the ai r . “I don’t know. He apologized.” 

“Good start,” Vicky says. “Excellent start.” 

“He wants to go on a date. He’s promised me a quiet date. ” 

Vicky doesn’t say anything. 

Patrick glances at her, and she’s smiling at him softly. “What?” he asks self-consciously. 

“Patrick. You’re dating Pete Wentz.” 

“I’m not,” Patrick protests half-heartedly. “It’s one date, it’s not… Dating implies multiple dates.” 

“You’ve shagged him twice,” Vicky says drily. 

“Those weren’t dates,” Patrick says. 

“I’m going to go out on a limb here but judging from everything else going on, I bet  your one-night stand was actually the best first date either of you have ever had in your entire lives .” 

It was, when put that way, yes, the best first date Patrick has ever had.  Patrick says, “Maybe.” 

Vicky isn’t fooled by him for a second. She laughs and says,  “You  fancy him so hard.” 

Patrick feels himself flush. “I don’t ‘fancy’ people, I’m not British.” 

“Fine. You like him a lot.” 

“He likes me, too,” Patrick says. He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe he just needs to make it real by telling someone else. 

“Did he say that?” asks Vicky . 

“Yeah,” Patrick confirms , trying not to feel embarrassed, trying not to feel needy.  _ Tell me  _ _ it’s not ridiculous of me to believe him _ , is what he wants to say. 

Vicky says, “Patrick, you’re going to have the showbiz wedding of the decade and you had better  introduce me to  Brad Pitt, okay?  He is single now and I am not missing my window of opportunity.” 

“Nothing about anything you just said is going to happen,” Patrick protests, faintly horrified. 

“Bet you twenty quid,” says Vicky, and walks into the coffee shop. 

Patrick stands in the doorway , blinking in confusion at the twists and turns of his life, and looks at the scattered paparazzi still following him.  Still following  _ him _ . 

He walks into the coffee shop. 


	20. Chapter 20

Pete is 40,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean when all hell breaks loose.

He’s scrolling through gifs on his phone, idly trying to decide which ones he should send to Patrick and how many he should send before being considered too needy, when his notifications begin to trickle and then stream. Okay, call Pete vain, but he likes to keep track of what the internet is saying about him. He shouldn’t – he should just turn the whole damn thing off – but he’s addicted to it. It’s one of the many addictions he should be dealing with in a sensible and healthy and effective manner and just…isn’t. And now, when he checks out why his mentions are suddenly blowing up, he’s glad he keeps track of them. Because, sure, the internet had taken notice of Patrick before, but that was the more obsessive pockets of it. Now it’s Buzzfeed listicles and even a _Daily Mail_ piece. Now Patrick is literally trending on fucking Twitter. 

_Too Late, Ladies, Pete Wentz Is Taken – BY A MAN!_

_Thirteen Things You Need to Know about Pete Wentz’s New Boyfriend (he’s just like you and me!)_

_ALREADY MARRIED!! Inside Pete Wentz’s secret wedding ceremony and the no-name pub owner who took the notorious commitmentphobe off the market_.

“Oh, fuck,” says Pete very eloquently.

“That tweet,” Andy remarks, blatantly reading over his shoulder. “You probably shouldn’t have sent that tweet. It was like pouring gasoline on the fire. You’ve never defended any of your other one-night stands, and you defended him. Twice.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” says Pete even more fervently, and calls Patrick.

Patrick answers with, “So I was having this really great day.”

He sounds annoyed. Of course he does. Obviously. This is annoying. Pete closes his eyes and groans. “I’m sorry.”

“My mom wants to know why we didn’t invite her to the wedding. She’s very upset. She blames you.”

“I thought the tweet would help,” Pete says, “I didn’t know it would do _this_.”

“Did you see this article about how you married a pub owner? I own a pub now. News to me. Unless you are actually did marry a pub owner.”

“I didn’t marry a pub owner,” Pete says.

“Like, are they trying to get every detail wrong?” Patrick’s voice is taut with frustration.

“I’m sorry,” Pete says again. He doesn’t know what else to say. He laughs, harsh and self-deprecating. “All I ever do is call you and apologize. I’m sorry.”

He hears Patrick take a deep breath on the other line. Then he says, “It’s fine.”

It’s clearly not fine. Pete has managed to fuck this up and he’s not even in the same time zone yet. “Should I tweet something else?” he suggests hesitantly.

“Like what?” Patrick sounds exhausted.

“I don’t know. ‘Never mind, I take it back, I don’t like Patrick Stump at all’?” Pete holds his breath through the silence that follows.

Patrick says finally, “Well. No. That’s… I mean, the only thing I have going for me at this point is that you like me. If you say that you don’t, the internet will still hate me, they’ll just find me extra-pathetic.”

Pete exhales. That doesn’t sound like a person who wants to break up with him before they’ve even started dating. Patrick is frustrated but Pete doesn’t think he’s going to break up with him yet. Pete tries a joke. “I could tweet about that freckle you’ve got.”

“The one freckle?”

“You know the one I mean,” says Pete, and turns away from Andy’s blatant eavesdropping with a frown.

“ _Oh_ ,” says Patrick, as memory kicks in. “No, don’t tweet about that fucking freckle.”

“You know it’s not about you,” Pete explains gently. “Like, any of this that’s going on.”

“No, I know, it’s all about you.”

“No, it’s not about either of us, it’s all fiction. I mean, that’s easier said than internalized, but like, it’s not you and it’s not me. Not really.” Pete is really bad at feeling this but he definitely _knows_ it. That was why Patrick seeing _him_ had made such an impact in the first place.

There’s another moment of silence. Patrick says, “I tweeted out ‘fuck you.’ I don’t think that helped much.”

“You have a Twitter?” Pete asks, momentarily distracted.

“Didn’t you read – hang on, let me get you the exact quote – ‘We Dug Up Patrick Stump’s Twitter, Judge for Yourself If He Deserves Pete Wentz’?”

Pete winces. “Patrick—”

“For the record, I didn’t know my Twitter account was going to be scrutinized this extensively, I would have tweeted fewer complaints about the weather in London, I’ve offended the entire population of Great Britain.”

“I…” Pete doesn’t know what to say. He says, “I could back you up on that, the weather in London can really get to you, would that help?”

“I have no clue what would help,” Patrick replies, “you’re the celebrity.”

Yeah, he’s supposed to be the one with guidance here. What helps when confronted with all the ugliest bits of fame is…hiding. At least, that’s what Pete’s done so far. He says, “Where are you?”

“I am in my apartment. I can’t be in my record store because now I’m attracting an alarming number of loud visitors who are opposed to gay marriage.”

“Motherfucker,” Pete sighs. “This is…not fun for you, is it?” It’s a stupid thing to say. He knows it as soon as it’s left his mouth. But he feels guilty and worried and, whatever, he says it. 

Patrick starts laughing.

Pete remarks, “You have a bad habit of laughing when I’m _not_ making jokes.”

“Sorry,” Patrick manages, “it’s just— _no_ , it’s not fun for me, I’ve had a lot more fun with you than this, _a lot_ , this is like the same level of fun as chewing glass.”

Pete sighs again. “Are there people stalking you outside?”

“I don’t know. There were. I’m staying away from the window. I don’t trust these, like, telescopic lenses. I’m staying in and I’m watching _Take This to Your Grave_.”

This surprises Pete. “Really?”

“Yeah, how old are you in this? Fifteen? It can’t possibly be legal to let a fifteen-year-old have this many sex scenes.”

“I was nineteen,” Pete says.

“Don’t judge me for watching this,” Patrick replies, “because I’m already judging myself. Very hard.”

“Why are you watching it?” Pete asks curiously. _Take This to Your Grave_ is good and well-respected, an artsy limited run series for Netflix that was his big break, but people don’t talk about it much anymore, after the explosion of _From Under the Cork Tree_ and _Infinity on High_.

Patrick breathes for a second, then admits, “I was reminding myself why I’m enduring the paparazzi and protestors outside my window.”

And that… Pete doesn’t know how it makes him feel. Terrible for being such a difficult person to like. But ecstatic that Patrick’s still giving it a try. He says, “Look, I’m over the Atlantic Ocean right now—”

“Are you on a _plane_? _Talking_ to me?’

“Private jet, Patrick.”

“Jesus, you’re a snob, that’s just how you Wilmette boys are.”

Pete appreciates the joke. He smiles out the plane window, at the clouds below him, and says, “Let me have you moved to the Goring.”

“The Goring? What? Why?”

“Because I’d feel better if you weren’t a sitting duck in your apartment having to listen to people shouting insults at you. I’ll send some security for you and have you moved to the Goring, and that way I’ll know you’re safe.”

“Do you think I’m not safe? What about Vicky and Joe?”

“I think you’re the only one taking abuse on social media but if you want to treat Vicky and Joe to a night at the Goring, please, be my guest, literally. It’s honestly the least I can do.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Patrick says, “Okay, that doesn’t sound like the worst idea, to be honest.”


	21. Chapter 21

Patrick’s had quite the day. He started it excited about Pete Wentz, looking forward to their date, full of joyous expectation. And now, as it’s winding down, he’s worried that he can’t be whatever it is Pete needs, that he isn’t _this person_ , this person who gets met by security in tinted-window cars and escorted to the goddamn Goring. This isn’t him. And he should probably tell Pete this now, before they get any deeper into this quagmire.

Vicky and Joe, at least, think Patrick guilt-tripping Pete Wentz into getting them a suite at the Goring is the best fucking thing they’ve ever heard. He’s happy his friends are enjoying it, he really is, because he’s not enjoying it even a little bit.

“Oh,” Vicky exclaims when she sees the suite, “let’s have a rager, Joe, ring your mates, let’s get it started.”

“I am taking a bath first,” Joe sniffs, “have you seen the size of the bathtub?” He closes the bathroom door primly.

“Okay, but as soon as you’re done bubbling or whatever, we’re having a rager!” Vicky shouts to him, then turns to Patrick. “Not really. Just a few people. I don’t want to get Pete Wentz in the tabloids.”

“No,” says Patrick, “all we need is a report about our raucous wedding reception at the Goring.”

Vicky gives him the same sympathetic look she’s been shooting him all day, as his afternoon devolved into more and more people invading the store with vicious assessments of exactly why Pete Wentz shouldn’t be giving him a second look. She says, “Look, this is nice of him, right? Isn’t it nice of him? He’s a decent bloke who’s trying to do right by you.”

“He’s a movie star and the only way we can have a halfway-private conversation is if he pays a thousand dollars a night for some fancy hotel suite,” Patrick huffs, “like, I don’t know, this is a lot, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”

“This morning you were admitting how much you like him,” Vicky reminds him.

“I like _him_ , I don’t like… _this_.” Patrick looks around the fancy hotel room and it’s utterly gorgeous and it could basically be trash heaped all around him, for all he cares about it.

“Look, it’s been a rough day. You should get a good night’s sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

There’s a beat.

“It’s six o’clock,” Patrick points out.

“Okay, yeah, I guess you can’t go to bed now. Let’s order some room service, what do you say? Maybe Joe will help us eat it when he’s done with his bath.”

Patrick isn’t hungry. Patrick doesn’t feel like being in this room. He’s regretting agreeing to this plan of Pete’s. Getting out of his apartment had seemed like a good idea at the time, but this place, with its rarefied air he would never otherwise be anywhere near, just reminds him how out of his depth he is. He says, “I’m going to, I don’t know, see if there’s a private terrace somewhere I can get some air.”

Vicky, already flipping through the room service menu, looks at him. “Please be careful, I don’t want you to, you know…”

“I’m not going to be fucking recognized, nobody expects to run into Patrick Stump in the Goring, the internet would tell you I’m way too low-class for that.”

“Patrick,” Vicky says, in the tone of voice like he’s wrong about that, which he definitely isn’t.

“I’ll be back,” he says, and steps out of the room and into the hallway.

There is a literal security guard stationed outside the door, who says to him immediately, “Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Stump?”

Patrick sighs. “This isn’t…” He wants to say it isn’t necessary but who the fuck knows at this point. He gives up and says instead, “Is Pete around? Do you know? Mr. Wentz?” He doesn’t know what the protocol is. He hasn’t heard from Pete saying he’s landed, but maybe Pete is avoiding him, maybe that’s what has to happen next when you’re dating a movie star, no, really, _who the fuck knows_.

“He hasn’t landed yet,” the security guard explains, “but I can take you to his room to wait for him there, if you prefer.”

Patrick hesitates. He didn’t know that was an option. Maybe it’s creepy and invasive? And at the same time…Patrick doesn’t want to be in the room with Vicky and Joe and he doesn’t want to be out in public and he can’t go back to his apartment now, so…maybe it’s the best option. He won’t snoop. He’ll just sit and watch television.

Pete’s room is, of course, a presidential kind of suite, grand and glorious, and there’s very little for Patrick to snoop into. Maybe the bedroom is more inhabited but the living room is pretty devoid of any indication that Pete has ever set foot in it. It’s cold and sterile and twice the size of Patrick’s apartment. There’s a moment where he feels keenly the absurdity of offering Lucky Charms in a studio apartment to a multimillionaire. But then, sitting swallowed up by the impersonality of this suite, he gets exactly why Pete was so delighted by it. This doesn’t feel like a real life to Patrick. This is an imitation of a real life.

Patrick sits in a hotel suite a million times too impressive for him and tries to hang onto his resolve. He needs to end whatever this weird thing is with Pete. He needs to thank him for his time—and the suite—and move on. He needs to explain that he can’t do this fame thing that Pete is so wrapped up in, that it’s not what he wants, that he’s always the person who wants to be hiding behind a drum set, not up at the microphone. Pete will never understand it, and so they just need to…not. Do this. Whatever this is. That’s what Patrick needs to say. Eloquently. Words will come to him in the moment.

Except then Pete walks into the suite, draws up short at the sight of Patrick, and _smiles_. He fucking smiles like Patrick is sitting in his hotel suite holding the sun and the moon and the goddamn Loch Ness Monster, like, it’s an unbelievable smile, it’s a smile that injects sunshine straight into Patrick’s veins, a tight hold around the vicinity of his heart, like, Patrick’s never been smiled at like this, like he’s something splendid and wondrous, just for _existing_ , just for sitting there _being Patrick_ , and the rush of it is heady and the high of it is enduring and Patrick thinks, oh, fuck, he is never giving this up, he would let that smile destroy him.


	22. Chapter 22

Pete’s head is an endless merry-go-round of possible things he could do to…keep fucking things up with Patrick. Like, everything he can think of to do seems like an equally terrible way of dealing with the chaos he’s caused in Patrick’s life, and it paralyzes him. Andy is no help, because he keeps making suggestions like _hire a social media manager_ , which, okay, fair point, thanks, Andy, but too late now. Pete is in the middle of wondering if he should tell Patrick he’s back, or if Patrick will then feel like Pete’s pressuring him to hang out, or if it would be weird _not_ to tell Patrick he’s back, or if Patrick would even—

And then Patrick’s there. Right there in his suite. And the relief Pete feels is hot and syrupy and melting, like, every anxious voice in Pete’s head is suddenly smothered at once at the sight of Patrick.

Pete turns around to Andy and says, “Okay, I’m good for the night,” and smartly marches him out of the room.

Andy says, “You’ve got—”

“Uh-huh,” says Pete, and closes the door on him and deadbolts it. Everything beyond that door is complicated as fuck. In here there’s just a _Patrick_.

Pete turns back to him. He’s standing awkwardly by the window, looking uncertain. “Hi,” Pete says. He can feel that he’s smiling at him. He can’t stop smiling at him. He’s aware he should be apologetic and contrite and sympathetic to what he’s done to Patrick’s life, but…he can’t stop smiling.

“Hi,” Patrick replies hoarsely.

Pete walks over to him, standing by the window. There’s London outside that window, it’s a pretty view, Pete couldn’t give less of a fuck. He says to Patrick, “How’s the Goring?”

Patrick looks around the suite, then back at Pete. “Better than my apartment.”

“I would disagree because your apartment’s got a Patrick, but now the Goring’s got a Patrick, too, so it’s a tough call.”

Patrick’s breath hitches. He says, “Pete, I’m…”

For a moment, Pete thinks, _Oh, fuck, this is it, he’s going to break up with you_ , and then Patrick’s mouth crashes into his.

“Mmph,” Pete says eloquently, caught off-guard, before he gets his act together and kisses Patrick back. The kiss is fast and furious and Patrick is pulling Pete’s t-shirt up over his head immediately, like, Patrick is ready to _go_.

“Listen,” Patrick pants as he flings Pete’s t-shirt away. “I just need…” He spreads his hands across Pete’s chest, drags downward until he’s covering the bartskull tattoo. His eyes watch his movement, he takes a ragged breath, he says again, “I just need…” He takes another ragged breath.

Pete watches Patrick, his teeth caught in his bottom lip, his expression thoughtful, and worried, and scared, and still _here_. Pete gets that: He’s having some kind of nervous breakdown he’s so scared. But he’s also still _here_.

“Hey,” he says softly, and Patrick lifts his gaze to meet his eyes. “Me, too,” he says.

***

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick says, breathless and a little stunned, because the sex is always spectacular, and somehow he always finds that shocking.

Pete, sweaty and hot and draped over him, sucks a lazy hickey onto his neck and mumbles, “I missed you.”

“You missed me or my dick?” It’s a weak joke, but Patrick’s got to go for something, because he saw Pete and immediately started ripping his clothes off of him, he’s lost all dignity.

“I missed you,” Pete says, tugging Patrick’s lip with his teeth playfully, “but your dick is a fucking nice bonus.”

Patrick kisses Pete, because he missed him, too, but he doesn’t want to say it because saying it makes it too _real_ , the depth of the mess Patrick is in for Pete, and how the fuck did it _happen_ , Patrick wants his quiet life back, he had every intention of getting his quiet life back, and then he saw Pete and it felt impossible, life without Pete felt _impossible_ , no matter how quiet it might be.

Pete settles on the pillow opposite him, and Patrick looks across at him. They’re a mess, they should clean up, but he’s caught in the memory of the first night they did this, of how Pete even then felt undeniable to him, inevitable, and it’s only gotten worse. It’s like déjà vu, the way he feels when he looks at Pete. The way he feels when Pete looks at _him_ , on the other hand, is all future-looking: like he can do anything in the universe.

Pete is some kind of fucking magic, Patrick doesn’t even know.

Pete says softly, “If you want to break up with me, you can do it now.”

Patrick looks at him. He’s got an impossibly handsome face, beautiful bone structure and perfectly shaped lips and stunning eyes. He should never look as sad as he does in that moment, bracing himself for sorrow. Patrick hates it. This, he knows, is the way the rest of the world makes Pete look. Patrick doesn’t want to join them.

And, anyway, Patrick fucking _can’t_ break up with him, he’s not _capable_ of it, he was all set to do it and instead he kissed him. Patrick says, with an attempt at lightness, “Are we going out?”

“Oh, darling,” Pete rejoins in kind, “I forgot to tell you: We got married.”

Patrick is relieved. This, he can do. This is the Pete he… “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Patrick replies. “Gorgeous ceremony. Our witnesses were two strangers we grabbed in off the street. I was drunk.”

“I was high,” Pete adds. “And I think I wore Louis Vuitton, right? I think that’s what it was. With cheetah-print jeans.”

“You gave me a piece of ribbon for a ring, which I’m offended by. Please in the future get me something platinum.”

“Only the best for you, Mr. Stump-Wentz.”

“Not Wentz-Stump?”

“Alphabetical,” says Pete. And then, after a moment of silence, “I mean it, though.”

“So do I: Platinum. Definitely.”

“Patrick,” sighs Pete.

Patrick looks at the ceiling.

Pete says, “Do you want me to break up with you?”

“No.” Patrick’s answer is immediate, instinctive. That moment when Pete’s agent pressed that check against his chest, those moments when Patrick thought maybe Pete did this indiscriminately all the time, all those many moments when he thought he was never seeing Pete again: Patrick doesn’t want any of those moments back. “Fuck,” he says, and covers his face. “Who invented the internet?”

“Al Gore, wasn’t it?” says Pete.

Patrick snorts. “Well, if I got a shot with a time machine, I’d probably go back and never do anything on the internet ever.”

“If I had a shot with a time machine, I’d go back and hire a social media manager,” says Pete ruefully. “I’m really sorry I made things…so bad.”

Patrick looks over at him. “I actually appreciated the tweet at the time, so I can’t be too angry with you for that.”

Pete, after a moment, smiles at him. Then he leans forward to kiss him gently. “What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t defend you on Twitter?”

“The kind who married me wearing cheetah jeans.”

“I’m sure they were designer,” says Pete.

“I’m sure they were _not_ , they were _cheetah jeans_.”

“Do you think these jeans exist?” Pete muses. “Do you think I could find them?”

“Lord help us,” says Patrick. They breathe together for a moment, looking at each other. Patrick’s read a million descriptions online of Pete’s eyes. None of them even come close. He whispers, “You should find someone who…is better…at all this.”

Pete, after a solemn moment, tries a crooked smile. “I don’t know, Patrick, your dick would tell you that you’re pretty good at all of this—”

“No,” Patrick interjects softly, “you know what I mean, I mean, your life, Pete, your _life_ is…”

“A lot,” Pete finishes ruefully.

“No, it’s just that you should maybe want to find someone who’s better at being famous. I don’t think that’s me.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Then Pete says, “I’ve met a lot of people really good at being famous. I want _you_.”

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that. He inhales slowly, exhales slowly. And then he becomes aware of several crumpled pieces of paper underneath him. It feels like time to change the subject. “What the hell is all over this bed?”

Pete smiles at him. “Well…” he drawls.

Patrick rolls his eyes and grabs some of the paper. “ _This_ ,” he says, brandishing it.

“It’s the script,” Pete replies. “I’ve got a huge scene in the morning, I’m supposed to be learning lines.”

Pete’s supposed to be learning lines. He would have been learning lines if Patrick hadn’t pounced on him and torn his clothes off. “Do you need help?” asks Patrick. “I mean, I’m no actor, and I have no idea if you need help, but I feel like, well, according to the internet I’m the reason the movie is massively behind schedule, so maybe I should help out.”

“You are definitely not the reason the movie is massively behind schedule, the director’s all over the place.” Pete sits up. “But you can also definitely help me run lines. While we eat. I’m starving. Let’s order room service. Want a steak?”


	23. Chapter 23

They end up with hamburgers. Pete tips handsomely but anyway, the Goring is known for being discreet, so there shouldn’t be any stories about Patrick being in his room, both of them in various states of disheveled. They sit at the massive dining table in the suite and Patrick runs lines with him. He is definitely no actor, his line delivery earnest but wooden, but it’s charming, how committed he is to helping, and anyway, Pete doesn’t need an actor opposite him at the moment, he just needs to learn the lines so he can find his way into the scene.

“It’s a tricky scene,” he says after their third run-through. He’s got the lines mostly down but he’s not sure how he wants to play them. He drags a French fry through ketchup thoughtfully.

“Is it a comedy?” Patrick asks, flipping through the script.

Pete looks at him. His eyebrows are drawn together in thought and it’s so adorable, Pete almost can’t stand it. Pete almost crawls over the table to kiss at the furrow. He says, “I don’t know, you tell me, what do you think?”

Patrick considers. “Well, this scene isn’t very funny, but maybe it’s just an outlier.”

“So,” says Pete, “it’s supposed to be a romcom, but the humor’s a little…subtle. I think Bebe and I could both bring it out more, make it funnier, except Butch—he’s the director—he can’t seem to figure out how he wants us to play it. We run every scene a million dramatically different ways. I feel almost like we’re doing an experiment and making the same movie in fifteen different genres simultaneously.”

“That’s why the filming’s behind schedule,” Patrick deduces.

Pete nods. “That’s why the filming’s behind schedule but the studio doesn’t want to admit Butch was a mistake. He’s supposed to be this big-deal, premiere director. So. Much easier to blame the disaster lead actor.” Pete gestures to himself.

Patrick frowns. “But you’re not a disaster.”

“Patrick. You know me. I’m a _huge_ disaster.”

“No, you’re not, you’re—Fuck, you’re just a _person_. Has anyone ever said that to you since you were, I don’t know, nineteen stripping out of your shirt in every other scene?”

Pete is startled. “Patrick—”

“No,” Patrick says staunchly, “this is kind of important, I need you to remember this and I don’t think you do. You’re _you_. It’s not like you only exist in my apartment. You exist _everywhere_. And just because no one else seems to be able to see you, that doesn’t mean you’re not still there. You’re just a person, like everyone else. Pete Wentz is just a person. That’s all.”

Pete has shifted from startled to stunned. He sits at the dining room table and stares at Patrick. He has no idea what to say. Pete Wentz: just a person. He hasn’t been… He hasn’t been anything other than the all-caps version of that person in over a decade. He’s forgotten…so, so much. “Patrick…” he says, trailing off.

“Just saying,” Patrick says awkwardly, shrugging, and nudges a fry like maybe it’ll jump up and dance a gig and provide them with a convenient distraction.

“I wish I was just a person,” Pete admits. “It’d be so much easier for you. This has been—I know you don’t—”

“You’re you, Pete. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.” Patrick looks across at him, meets his eyes. Patrick’s eyes are blue-blue-blue. Blue like the possibilities that exist in the morning sky.

“I feel like I forget about him,” Pete admits. “When I’m not with you. Like…I’m not sure where I’m playing the part, if it’s here or if it’s there, it’s…a long time pretending to be a person who never existed.”

Patrick shrugs and munches on the French fry he’d been nudging. “We all do that.”

It’s a pretty sentiment, and Pete wants desperately to believe it. “We definitely do not all do that,” he rejoins. “You’ve never acted a day in your life. You know how I know that?” Pete taps the script on the table between them. “You’re fucking terrible at it.”

“Oh, wow,” Patrick responds in kind, allowing the shift in tone, “ _harsh_ , just because I don’t have any Golden Globes or anything.”

“Golden Globes are pointless,” Pete says. He can tell he’s smiling, can feel it pulling at his lips, and honestly, it’s been so long since he smiled so regularly because he wanted to instead of being told to, instead of smiling on cue, toward the camera. So many things he’d forgotten how to do without a camera watching. A long time pretending to be a person who never existed. He pushes back from the table and ducks underneath it.

“You say that because you’ve got one,” Patrick says, peering under the table at him. “What are you doing under there?”

“Did you watch _From Under the Cork Tree_?” Pete asks, pushing Patrick’s knees apart to give himself room in between them.

“No, just your Golden Globe acceptance speech for the role. Where you gave a very good impression, by the way, of not thinking it was pointless.”

Pete smiles at him – _smiles, smiles, smiles_ – and unzips his jeans. “I’m an actor. You may have noticed. And I would like to properly thank you for running lines with me.”

Patrick closes his hand into the short hair on the nape of Pete’s neck. Sometimes Pete wants to let the hair there grow and grow, see how long he can get it, how long he can stop with the endless upkeep that is Being Pete Wentz. For now his hair is short, and Patrick’s nails scrape through it, and he says hoarsely, “Sorry I didn’t do a better job pretending to be in love with you in that scene we just ran.”

Pete looks at him. Everything in the universe hangs in the air between them. Pete, for a moment, can’t breathe. Then he takes a deep breath before swallowing Patrick down, holding his eyes the whole time.

***

Patrick wakes to the bathroom light on, spilling into the bedroom, lighting whatever Pete’s doing at the bureau. It’s a harsh glaring light, clashing with the utter darkness of the room, the utter stillness outside the room. Patrick knows instinctively, without looking at a clock, that it isn’t nearly morning yet.

He mumbles something into the sinfully soft pillow of the Goring, before turning his head to squint toward Pete.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Pete whispers. “I didn’t mean to wake you but I can’t find my—there. Sorry. There.” Pete leans over and shuts the bathroom light off. The darkness in the room is darker than usual in the aftermath of the brightness.

“What are you doing?” Patrick manages, turning onto his back and rubbing at his eyes. “Come to bed. Have you been up all night? What’s happening?” He is thickly confused, half-asleep, still a little sex-drunk, or possibly sex-hungover.

“Early call time,” Pete says. “I have to run to the set to give them enough time to make me beautiful.”

“Lies, you’re stupidly beautiful all the time,” Patrick complains grumpily.

Pete comes to sit next to him on the bed, Patrick feels the mattress dip under his weight, senses the silhouette of him in the darkness. “Ooh, you’re a delight when you’re half-asleep, tell me more.”

“Come back to bed,” Patrick says, “it’s the middle of the night.”

“I really do have to go,” Pete says ruefully. “Sorry.” He leans down to press his nose into Patrick’s cheek, a gesture that feels curiously more intimate than a kiss would have. “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“How?” grumbles Patrick. “You’re leaving.”

“This guy invented phones, like, I don’t know, a hundred and fifty years ago or something? I think it might have been Alexander Graham Bell? And now they’ve evolved to be, like, computers in our pockets. I bet that somehow, someway, we will find a way to engage in long-distance communication. Like magic, Evanston, I promise.”

“It’s too early for this,” Patrick sighs, and closes his eyes. “Or too late.”

“You gorgeous, impossible person,” Pete says softly, and threads his fingers through Patrick’s hair. “You keep being spectacular.”

“You’ve really got to get out more,” Patrick tells him blurrily, turning into the light pressure of his fingertips on his scalp.

“Will you remember in the morning,” Pete whispers in his ear, “if I tell you right now that I might be in love with you?”

Patrick does, indeed, remember in the morning.


	24. Chapter 24

Andy is standing in the hallway when Pete ducks out of his hotel room. A couple of minutes late, but really, who could have possibly resisted Patrick, sleepy and adorable in that bed? No mortal, that’s for sure. Pete Wentz is, after all, only human, much as it seems easy for the rest of the planet to believe otherwise.

Andy says, “See how I didn’t barge into the room and interrupt you?”

“I appreciate that unexpected level of tact, thank you,” Pete replies.

“We’re not actually enemies,” Andy reminds him. “How’s the wooing going? No offense, but he doesn’t seem to need much wooing.”

“Andy,” Pete says seriously, “he deserves to be wooed _extravagantly_ , and I have done _nothing_ so far.”

“It seems to be working for you,” Andy replies, “keep doing it. Also: He completely checks out.”

“Checks out?” Pete echoes. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t seem to be a violent stalker. I don’t think he’s going to kill you.”

“He’s had numerous opportunities to kill me,” Pete points out. “Like, a plethora of opportunities.”

“Just saying. A lot of people want to keep you safe.”

They step onto the elevator together. “A lot of people have a vested interest in keeping me safe,” Pete corrects him. “That’s not quite the same thing.”

“People care about you. Shane—”

“Not talking about Shane before coffee,” Pete says, shaking his head. “Which you neglected to bring me.”

“Because…” says Andy, as the elevator opens onto the lobby, and there, on cue, is an attendant waiting with coffee. “Here,” Andy says, passing it along to Pete. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

“I literally pay you to do things for me,” Pete reminds him. “But thank you.”

“Shane’s freaking out,” Andy says.

“Fuck him for now,” Pete replies. “I’ve had a decade of my life worrying about Shane. Today, I am not worrying about Shane. I’m going to go see how much of a disaster Butch can make this movie today. While blaming me for it. Do you know Patrick’s very upset about that?”

“Okay?” offers Andy, and Pete can tell he’s not following what there is to be upset about.

“Good morning, Mr. Wentz,” says the driver the studio sent to pick him up, as he makes his way into the car.

“Not morning yet,” Pete answers, “but good ungodly-predawn-hour to you.”

“So,” Andy says, sliding into the car with him, “if I broach practical topics, are you going to be an asshole about them?”

Pete lifts his eyebrows and sips his coffee and says, “I think you’ll find that I am never an asshole. Now. What practical topics?”

“Is Patrick—Mr. Stump—I mean—is he going to be staying at the Goring?”

“We haven’t discussed that,” Pete says.

“What about his friends?”

“Again, we haven’t discussed that.”

“What—”

“Andy, let me tell you what Patrick and I did last night.”

Andy winces. “Please don’t.”

“We ran lines,” Pete explains.

Andy blinks. “Oh.”

“I mean, we also had a lot of great sex, but we ran lines. We didn’t discuss any future plans. We ran lines.”

“Well, that’s good,” Andy says. “Very responsible of you.”

“We used condoms, too,” Pete tells him.

“You’re both clean,” Andy assures him.

“It’s creepy that you know that,” says Pete. “You know that it’s creepy that you know that, right?”

Andy shrugs.

Pete sighs. What the fuck is his life? Well, it’s this, most of the time. It’s exactly this. That life happening in Patrick’s apartment, in bed with Patrick, _with Patrick_ – that is not usually his life. This is his life, hair and makeup and wardrobe fussing in a buzz all around him, his automatic flirting with them because this is who Pete Wentz is, who he has to be, charmingly scattered, blame everything on him, it’s okay, what more do you want from an affable loser like Pete Wentz, he’s good for a pretty smile and a wink, right?

It’s funny, the way Pete’s life goes: Patrick is like any other high, he seems to wear off almost immediately. Without him, Pete is dragging, exhausted, supremely bored and unimpressed and… _sad_. Patrick said it that very first night, that Pete was sad, and Pete calls himself lots and lots and lots of things, but never sad.

And then he walked into his mother’s house and started sobbing so hey…maybe Pete Wentz is sad. Huh.

Pete is standing off to the side contemplating his sorrow and waiting for Butch to be satisfied. He is also texting Patrick, because he kind of needs another hit of Patrick. So he texts, _I am very bored, you are never boring, come be not boring near me_.

Bebe says, “I think he’s going to make them change the silverware on the table.”

Pete looks up from his phone, squints toward the table. “What? Why?”

“Because Butch,” says Bebe, and leans up against the wall near him. “So I feel like I owe you an apology.”

“For?” Pete doesn’t keep track of who does and doesn’t owe him apologies. Who has the fucking energy for that?

“I accused you of going on a bender without me, but it turns out it was a different sort of bender entirely, so now I get why I wasn’t invited.” She smiles at him winningly. “Tell me about him.”

“Nothing you’ve read about him is true,” Pete warns. He actually hasn’t read the articles but he’s confident of that statement.

“He seems nice and normal.”

“You’re getting that because he allegedly married me while wearing plaid pants?”

“They were tartan trousers,” Bebe laughs lightly, “that one was a British article. And no, he seems nice and normal because you went undercover to meet him. That’s how anyone meets any of the good ones.” Bebe herself looks a little wistful, which makes Pete realize that, well, maybe he _is_ lucky here.

No, _he_ _is_ lucky. It’s Patrick getting the short end of the stick.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, “it’s rough, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, maybe it’s not rough when it comes to you. It’s rough when it comes to me. It’s rough to be nice and normal and have to date _me_. I’m ruining his life. And I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Pete is appalled with himself. He’s supposed to have light and frivolous conversations, that is his _specialty_.

“Because you need a friend,” Bebe says knowingly.

Pete is momentarily speechless. Because it is true, Pete doesn’t have friends, not really. Nobody he knows is really…a friend.

“You know, Pete Wentz, you’re supposed to have the world on a platter. When I got offered this part and it was opposite you, my agent was over the moon. Pete Wentz prints money, she said. Everything he touches turns to gold, she said. And she’s right, that’s true about you. But Midas is really the loneliest fucking person. You don’t have friends when that’s who you are. And you definitely don’t get people who fall in love with _you_.”

Pete just stares at her. She’s one hundred percent right, but no one ever seems to grasp that about him.

She shrugs in response to his silent query. “I’ve been around a long time. I was a child star, remember? I have _seen fucking things_. I get it, Pete Wentz. I was Midas when I was six.”

Pete considers that. “It must be a worse feeling when you’re six.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know that it’s a competition.” Bebe looks back at him. “I don’t think it’s all rough, you know. Dating you. And I don’t just mean because you seem like a nice guy or whatever. I mean that being Pete Wentz has some downsides, sure, but I bet it’s got some pretty incredible upsides, right? Like. Give him some of the upside.”

“Can we please get to work now?” Butch suddenly snaps at them, like they’ve been the hold-up.

Bebe says, as they head toward set together, “Also, does he have any available friends?”


	25. Chapter 25

Patrick wakes up in bed in the Goring. This is his life now. Well. For the time being.

He checks his phone. He sent a text to Vicky last night so she wouldn’t worry when he never went back to the room, and there’s a reply: _Enjoy the shag!!!_ Plus two eggplant emojis. Patrick rolls his eyes. There’s also a text from Pete. _I am very bored, you are never boring, come be not boring near me._

Pete, who said he might be in love with him. Pete. Patrick considers the text, swallows thickly, writes back, _Joe says I’m very boring, I feature the same albums in my store window every week._ He waits a couple of minutes for a reply but there is none. And then he thinks that he can’t sit here waiting all day for a reply so he checks the time and calls Vicky.

She answers with, “Hey, you, how’s your sexiest man alive sex going?”

Patrick winces. “You know when I wasn’t having sex with Pete Wentz?”

“I do know that time, yes.”

“And we never talked about sex, remember?”

“Well, there was nothing to talk about, mate, you weren’t having any.”

“Yeah, can we go back to that state of affairs?”

“I don’t know, is he that hideous in bed that you want to stop shagging him?”

“No, I want to stop _talking_ about shagging him,” says Patrick.

“You shouldn’t say ‘shag,’ it sounds weird in your accent,” Vicky informs him.

Patrick secretly agrees but is desperate to change the subject. “Do you think I can open the store today?”

“Joe and I already opened it for you,” Vicky replies.

Patrick sits up in bed, surprised. “You did?”

“We’re model employees,” Vicky explains primly.

Patrick replies, “I just thought you’d be sleeping off your Goring night of hedonism.”

“ _Joe_ ,” Vicky says loudly, clearly making sure Joe can hear her, “took the world’s longest fucking bath and then when he was done he was ‘too relaxed’ to go out and he curled up in bed with a fucking book like he’s fucking I don’t know seventy fucking years old.”

“The bubble bath was a special formula!” Patrick can hear Joe shouting back. “It was designed to relax you!”

“So, anyway, Joe was sleeping and you were off _not_ sleeping with a movie star and what the fuck was I supposed to do, the two of you are the worst. And so we were here, bright and early, to open your shop.”

“And there aren’t any protestors or paparazzi?” Patrick asks.

“Eh, a couple. But Pete hasn’t tweeted about you in a bit, so you’re already yesterday’s news. Cheryl Tweedy wore some hideous outfit to some charity gala and everybody’s talking about that instead. You’re old news, Patrick.”

Patrick never thought he would be so happy to be called _old news_. Maybe he can actually go back to work. Maybe he can go back to his regular life…with a movie star boyfriend who might be in love with him. Totally normal day.

***

The scene runs smoothly. They do a few takes and the feedback is…good. The feedback is _constructive_. Pete can tell that he and Bebe click, that they’ve found their way into their characters’ dynamic. Pete, who had no idea what approach he was going to take when he was running lines with Patrick the night before, finds that it’s obvious in light of Bebe’s choices, and Butch actually seems happy with them, and frankly Pete can’t believe how excellently his day is going. He left an adorable Patrick in his bed and now he’s having a good morning at his acting job, when normally he is terrible at his acting job, and then when he gets a break and checks his phone, there’s a text from Patrick.

What a _perfect_ day.

Pete smiles and calls him. Patrick answers with a cautious “Hello?,” like he’s not sure why Pete might be calling him, and Pete smiles and smiles. _God_ , he thinks, _I am so fucking gone for you_. “Yeah, but if they’re the right albums, then why would you change them?” he says.

Patrick, after a moment, replies, “Of course they’re the right albums.”

“Hmm,” says Pete, as he goes into his trailer and locks the door behind him. He doesn’t want to be disturbed at all while he’s flirting with his adorable Patrick on his lunch break. “Let me guess what they are.”

“No,” says Patrick. “What are you talking about? You’ve been to my store. You’ve seen my windows. You _know_ what they are.”

“Evanston, I’ve got news for you,” Pete says, dropping onto his couch. “Whenever I’ve looked into your store’s windows, it wasn’t to look at the _records_.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Patrick huffs, and Pete can hear the blush in his tone.

_You make my life seem doable_ , Pete says. _Talk to me forever_. He doesn’t say that because that sounds like a needy loser thing to say, and Patrick deserves, like, an actual catch here, not the needy loser he’s got.

“How’d your scene go?” Patrick asks, obviously trying to change the subject.

“Incredibly well,” Pete beams up at the ceiling of his trailer. “Clearly running lines with you is the key to success on this movie.”

“We can do it again if you want,” says Patrick, and then hastily, “I mean. Only if you want. You only… Only if you want.”

“Patrick,” says Pete, “do you think there’s any circumstance under which I would turn down your company?”

Patrick seems to actually consider this, before offering the absurd answer of, “Maybe?”

“Well, I’ve done a terrible job here, then,” remarks Pete. “Let me take you out tonight.”

“We could stay in,” Patrick suggests. “The gawkers and paparazzi have mostly gone now, we could probably smuggle you in.”

“We could stay in, if that’s what you want. But I promised you a good date, didn’t I? A real date? You know, one where we keep our clothes on for maybe like an hour or something? Don’t you want to see if we can achieve that goal?”

Pete waits for Patrick’s response. He doesn’t want to force him to go out, but also Bebe’s words are bouncing around his head. He wants to convince Patrick that it’s a good thing to date Pete Wentz, that there are some advantages to it.

Patrick says eventually, “It’s not, like, the Oscars or something, is it?”

“The Oscars?” echoes Pete. “Patrick, it’s October, Jesus Christ, I _adore_ you.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Patrick grumbles, “I don’t know this stuff, my point is, I can’t go be on a red carpet, I am the _opposite_ of someone you want on a red carpet.”

“You definitely are not, but no, no red carpet. Dinner. I think you’ll like it. Can we do dinner?”

“Yeah,” says Patrick. “Let’s… Yeah.”

There’s a knock on his door. Andy’s voice calls, “Pete?”

Pete says, “Listen, I’ve got to run. I’m done here around five. Can we say seven for dinner? Is that too early? Will you need to stay later at the record store?”

“No,” says Patrick faintly. “Seven’s good. It’s great.”

“Good,” Pete says. “See you then, Evanston.” Then he hangs up and opens the door for Andy.

Andy holds up a sandwich.

“Did you get me lunch?” Pete says. “Like an actual PA?”

“No,” says Andy, “this is for me, I was coming to tell you to get your own before they run out.”

“Ha ha,” says Pete. “You’re hilarious.”

Andy hands him the sandwich.

Pete says, “I’ve got some work I need you to do.”

“I just got you a sandwich,” Andy points out.

“I need to woo Patrick tonight. I’m going to take him to dinner.”

“Okay. Do you want me to look up some places?”

“No, I know exactly where we’re going,” Pete says, and grins.


	26. Chapter 26

Patrick hangs up the phone and wishes desperately there were some customers in the store.

There aren’t, so Vicky and Joe are both immediately like, “Ooooh, a _date_ ,” and “Are you going _out_? He didn’t want to _stay in_ with you?” and leering obnoxiously at him.

“Okay,” Patrick says firmly. “It’s just a date. That’s all. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do.”

“You know we would have acted like this no matter who you were dating,” Joe remarks. “It’s just a bonus that it’s the biggest movie star on the planet.”

“I can’t decide if it makes me more or less twitterpated that you’re dating him instead of just shagging him,” says Vicky.

“Twitterpated?” echoes Joe. “That’s the word you’re going with?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” says Vicky. “That’s my choice and I’m sticking to it.”

Joe shrugs and looks at Patrick. “Back to Patrick.”

“Oh, darn,” says Patrick drily, “I thought maybe you were going to distract each other by making up words.”

“No,” Vicky says, “we will not be distracted from your _date_. What are you going to wear?”

“Oh, fuck,” says Patrick in alarm, “what am I going to wear?”

“Where’s he taking you?” asks Joe.

“I don’t know. Not the Oscars.”

“The Oscars?” Vicky says. “It’s October.”

“Yeah,” Patrick snaps nervously, “I get it, the Oscars don’t happen in October, can we _focus here_? I’m going on a date with the hottest guy on the planet, like, _literally_ the hottest guy _on the planet_ , people have done actual _polls_ about this, and what the fuck am I supposed to wear, and also I think he told me he loves me.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

Maybe Patrick didn’t exactly intend to say that, but, fucking fuck, the hot movie star you’re sleeping with says he loves you before you’ve ever eaten an _actual clothed_ meal with him, like, Patrick’s got to work through this, _the most famous person in the world loves him?_

Vicky says, “Hang on, what the fuck.”

“Yeah, exactly, _what the fuck_ ,” Patrick agrees.

“You think he said he loves you?” Joe repeats.

“No, I know he said it,” Patrick corrects himself. “I mean, he said…” Patrick closes his eyes so he can remember it perfectly, repeat it perfectly. “Will you remember in the morning if I tell you right now that I might be in love with you? That’s what he said.” Patrick opens his eyes. “So what the fuck do you think that means?”

The door jangles open with a customer.

Who says, “Hey, so, I was wondering if you could tell me about Pete’s—”

“Nope,” says Vicky, physically turning the customer around and marching them out of the store. “We’re closed.” She locks the door and turns over the closed sign for good measure. Then she turns back to Patrick. “He’s in love with you,” she says, all dreamy and sweet.

“Why was he asking if you’d remember?” Joe asks. “What kind of weird kinky sex do you have?”

Patrick glares at him. “It was the middle of the night. I was half-asleep. It wasn’t about sex.”

“I thought this was _all_ about sex,” remarks Joe. “And now I find out you’re the fucking love of Pete Wentz’s life.”

“No,” Patrick says, “that’s not what—I mean—I don’t know. That could be a line. He could say that to every insignificant record store owner he picks up in cities where he’s glamorously filming and they’re just, like, _dazzled_.”

“If he makes a habit of pulling record shop owners,” Vicky points out, “you’re the first one he’s ever tweeted in defense of.”

“Maybe I’m the first one anyone ever found out about,” says Patrick.

“No offense, mate,” Joe says, “because he seems like a great bloke who put us up at the Goring last night, but I don’t think he’s all that great at keeping secrets. I mean. There’s not much evidence of that, you know what I mean?”

Patrick hesitates. Because…if Pete doesn’t make a habit of this, then…then Pete _means_ it.

“Hey,” Vicky says softly, “you fancy him so hard. What’s the problem with this?”

“It’s fast,” says Patrick. “It’s fast, and he’s literally _on the cover of that magazine over there_ —” Patrick gestures to the _W_ —“and I…I’m _me_ and I’m not—”

Vicky cuts him off. “A bloke you fancy a lot just told you he fancies you back. This is the opposite of the end of the world, yeah?”

“Is it?” asks Patrick.

“Text him,” Joe says calmly, “and ask him what you should wear tonight, and go on your date, and be _happy_ , Patrick. He’s not the person on the cover of that magazine, he’s the person who woke you up in the middle of the night to say he might be in love with you. You want to go on a date with that person, I think.”

Of course Patrick does. Patrick wants to go on a million dates with that Pete. He doesn’t know how to explain how much he just thought that, well, that things like this didn’t happen to him, and he was _fine_ with that, and now he’s got this sudden evidence that they _do_ happen to him, and they come perpetrated by _movie stars_. It’s so much.

But he texts Pete. _What should I wear?_

He looks at Vicky and Joe, who are studiously fiddling with records and pretending not to watch him. He notices that neither of them has asked if he’s in love with Pete. Probably because that is _so fucking obvious_.

His phone vibrates in his hand. _Whatever you think will take me the longest to get you out of_ , and then, _Here’s a lizard, I like him_ , and then a gif of a lizard in a top hat sunning himself on a rock.

Patrick stares at the gif. It’s the stupidest gif in the world and Patrick can’t stop smiling and Patrick thinks, _Oh, Jesus, Patrick Stump, you are so fucked_.

***

Pete is floating on air. He acts on automatic (look, regardless of what Butch would like to think, this movie’s not Oscar bait, okay?). He acts on automatic because he is planning his date in his head. Pete hasn’t been on a date since he was eighteen. That was before he decided to move to Hollywood and do something that wasn’t “rot in the suburbs of Wilmette” and then before he knew it he had a Netflix deal in his lap and everyone said wasn’t Pete Wentz the luckiest motherfucker on the planet, like, just the goddamn _luckiest_.

And it’s fifteen years later and Pete is finally, once again, going on a _date_.

He remembers dating as being buying as little food as possible at a diner without getting kicked out because neither of them had any money and then some kind of fumbling sexual act in the back of a car in a dark corner of an Arby’s parking lot or whatever. Jesus, he was a terrible date. He’s going to be a much better date for Patrick.

He gives orders to Andy on breaks between filming, while cameras are reset. Andy makes no comment on any of his choices and at first Pete is happy about that, he doesn’t want Andy being Mr. Negativity as usual all around Pete’s space, but then, driving back to the Goring from set, with the date looming, nervousness crashes into Pete abruptly, like hurtling into a wall at a hundred miles per hour.

“Am I doing this wrong?” he asks Andy.

“Doing what wrong?” Andy asks blandly.

Pete scowls at him. “You know what! The wooing!”

“Look, I have literally never met this guy, okay? If you think this date is what he’s going to like, then, do it.”

Pete chews on his bottom lip anxiously. “I do,” he decides. “I _do_ think he’ll like this.”

“Then.” Andy shrugs. “It’s fine.”

_Fine_ , Pete thinks, as he showers and dresses. He doesn’t want the date to be _fine_. He wants it to be spectacular.

Pete looks at himself in the mirror. His hair is a frizzy mess that will dry into its natural curls if he doesn’t do something about it, and he’s wearing jeans and a Beastie Boys t-shirt because he doesn’t want to be a movie star, he wants to be just Pete Wentz who’d pull this outfit on to lounge around the house in, that’s what he wants.

Oh, fuck, is this all a mistake, he thinks, staring at his reflection. His eyes slide to the medications lined up on the bathroom counter. There’s one in there for anxiety and it would be so easy to take just one more than he’s supposed to take. One, two, three, four, Pete knows how this goes, this slippery slope of justification, the way pills can deceive you and make you feel like they’re doing nothing until suddenly they’re all killing you.

Pete takes a deep breath and walks out of the bathroom and calls his mother. He can’t believe he didn’t call her before this.

“Peter,” she answers warmly. “You got back to London safe. I mean, I assume you did or Facebook would have told me you’d died.”

Pete knows she means this as a little joke and he’s supposed to be playfully appalled at her and instead he just gasps out, “I’m going on a date with Patrick tonight.”

“Aww, Pete, that’s lovely. See, I told you that he liked you.”

“What if I’ve done it all wrong?” Pete asks, anguished.

“Done what all wrong?”

“The date! I planned the date and what if it’s all wrong?”

“Pete, your first two dates you never left his apartment. I bet he’s going to be impressed no matter where you go. And anyway, the date will be perfect because it’s with you, and that’s what this young man wants, because he has good and admirable sense.”

“God,” Pete mumbles, scrubbing a hand down his face, “you’re a good mom.”

“I’m good at my job, you should call me more often,” she replies.

“I haven’t been on a date since I was eighteen,” Pete says. “What if I’ve forgotten everything?” He tries to pretend like he ever even knew stuff _to_ forget.

“If you start to panic, you should look into his eyes,” his mom suggests. “Foolproof dating technique. That’s what I remember from my days, at least.”

That seems doable. And Patrick has _beautiful_ eyes. “Yeah,” Pete says, with a little hiccup for breath. “Yeah.”

“You’re going to have an amazing date, sweetheart,” his mother promises him. “I just know it.”


	27. Chapter 27

Patrick has the worst hair that has ever existed in the history of time. This is verifiable fact. It’s awful. Pete’s internet life is scattered through with assessments of how he has the best _everything_ , and Patrick knows right now that, by contrast, Patrick is going to win _Worst_ Hair of All Time from the internet.

He knocks on Vicky’s door and says, “Look at my hair.”

Vicky looks at it. “Okay,” she says. She’s slurping ramen from a bowl and doesn’t look very interested in Patrick’s hair.

“I am going on a _date_ with a _movie star_ ,” Patrick reminds her. “A movie star you think is hot.”

“He _is_ hot,” Vicky responds. “That’s just the objective truth.”

“So could you _help_ me here?” Patrick begs.

Vicky looks quizzical. “With what?”

“With _me_.” Patrick gestures frantically to _his entire person_ , what is not to see about how much help he needs?

Vicky lifts her eyebrows. “Patrick, you look good. I mean, casual, but that’s your thing. Those are good jeans on you, they make your ass look great.”

They make his ass look huge. Whatever. “But my _hair_ ,” Patrick complains, fluffing it uselessly.

“Wear a hat,” Vicky suggests. “Look, what are you nervous about? You’ve shagged the bloke plenty of times. He’s clearly into you. Haven’t we already been over how unnecessary this freak-out is?”

“You’re not a helpful friend,” Patrick informs her, then stomps away huffily.

“Patrick!” she calls after him. “You’re going to have an absolute perfect time!”

Patrick flings a middle finger back at her, because he is _very stressed_ , okay? He remembers that it should be two fingers in England and amends it quickly.

His phone rings. His mother. Patrick sends it to voicemail. A text from Verity comes in. _Is it true you’re staying at the Goring?_ Verity’s gossip is sloth-like, Patrick thinks, she needs a new purveyor.

And then there’s another text. From Pete. _Sending a car for you, see you soon_.

Sending a car for him. He’s going on a date with a guy who sends cars for him.

“Jesus fuck,” he whispers to himself, and looks in the mirror one last time. His _hair_. Vicky’s right. He grabs a fedora and cocks it jauntily to the side of his head. He imagines he looks okay. He’s no Humphrey Bogart but it’s better than his hair doing whatever dead roadkill thing it was doing on top of his head.

The car is black and sleek and Patrick is aware of the couple of lingering paparazzi who take notice of it as he slides into the backseat. Which is tragically deserted, he was hoping Pete might be in it.

The driver says cheerfully, “Good evening, Mr. Stump.”

“Hi,” Patrick says. “We’re going to be followed.” He’s resigned to it. He glances out the back window.

“We’ve got a plan for that,” the driver responds.

Patrick doesn’t know London well enough to have any idea where the driver is taking him. At one point his phone buzzes with a text from Pete. It’s a gif of a car rolling off a cliff.

Patrick texts back, _My car is currently not doing that_.

_Oh good!!!_ Pete texts back.

Patrick shakes his head and glances out the window in time to see them arrive at…the Goring.

And Patrick can’t help the sense of disappointment that overtakes him. He was looking forward to this date. He thought it was going to be somewhere interesting.

They drive to the back, toward the loading docks, and security closes up behind them, and then the car stops.

Patrick reaches for the door, saying, “Thanks for the—”

“This isn’t our stop,” the driver replies. “This is to lose our followers.”

So they’ll assume he went into the Goring and is spending the rest of the night with Pete. “Oh,” Patrick realizes. “That’s clever.”

“Mr. Wentz’s special request,” the driver replies, and then shifts the car into action again.

Patrick instinctively slides down in the seat, hoping he can’t be seen in the back. The car drives and drives and drives. Surely it’s taking a circuitous route to throw people off, it seems impossible he would need to be driving this long.

And then, finally, eventually, the driver stops and says to him, “We’re here.”

Patrick peeks his head up enough to see where they are. On one side looms an enormous number of train tracks. On the other side is a graveyard.

Patrick looks at the driver.

The driver shrugs.

“Okay,” Patrick says, because what else is he going to say. “Thanks.” He hesitates, then reaches into his pocket. “Am I supposed to...?”

The driver shakes his head. “No, no, no. Not at all.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees awkwardly, then looks out the window again. “Did he give you any instructions?”

“Just to drop you off here. That’s St. Pancras Old Parish through that graveyard, so...” The driver gestures.

A church? Patrick thinks. He’s supposed to go on a date with Pete in a church? Or in a graveyard. Which is worse?

He gets out of the car and texts Pete. _I’m here_. He supposes that’s accurate. He’s certainly _somewhere_.

The car drives away. He can hear the buzz of people nearby, but it’s dark and the graveyard is poorly lit and spooky. It’s also starting to rain. He frowns. Not that he’s not still excited to be on this date with Pete, but, like, _really_ , he’d like it a lot better if he was inside and warm and not standing alone in a dark graveyard—

Pete cuts off all of Patrick’s growing annoyance by swooping in at just that moment and kissing him hello, firm and stubborn, a fuck-yes-I’m-kissing-you-in-this-graveyard kiss. Then he pulls back. “Hi,” he says. “You found the place.”

“The driver found the place,” Patrick says.

“Drivers are awesome,” Pete replies. “You look fantastic. I love this hat. It’s a very sexy hat.”

It’s not a sexy hat. It’s covering up his terrible hair. Whatever. Patrick says, “Not that this isn’t charming,” delicately, because he doesn’t want to hurt Pete’s feelings but it’s damp and chilly and he’d like to be inside.

Pete is grinning, Patrick can see it in the dim ambient light. “You don’t want to make out in a graveyard in the dark with me for a little while?”

“I mean,” says Patrick. He can’t figure out what’s going on. Is this where they have to make out because otherwise they’ll be spotted and photographed?

“This is where Mary Shelley, you know, _did it_.”

“Did what?” Patrick asks blankly.

“ _You_ know.”

“Write ‘Frankenstein’?”

“No. Patrick.” Pete laughs. “This is where she lost her virginity.”

“In this graveyard?”

“On her mom’s grave, do you not know this story? Her mother used to be buried here. Her body’s been moved now, but…”

“Did they move her body because her daughter had sex on the grave?” Patrick asks, amazed.

“No. Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know why they moved the body.”

“I feel like I should be surprised you know so much about graveyards, and yet somehow I am not surprised, I bet you were an emo kid who was constantly making out with people in graveyards.”

“That would have been way too smooth and sexy for me, I made out with people in Arby’s parking lots.”

“ _Arby’s_ ,” Patrick repeats, “really, Pete, have standards.”

“Be lucky you caught me when I’m older and suaver and take my conquests to graveyards.”

“Lucky, lucky me,” says Patrick drily. “Definitely suaver, is what I think about you all the time.” And it’s utterly ridiculous, he’s standing in a dark graveyard in the rain with the biggest movie star on the planet and he was freaking out over not being good enough for him but when he’s _with_ Pete, Pete is, well, just the dorkiest, silliest person, Patrick can’t help how very not like a big deal movie star he always seems to him.

“I didn’t take you here to make out in the graveyard,” Pete says, “although I wouldn’t protest if that’s how you want to spend the evening.”

“It depends,” says Patrick, “is our next stop going to be inside?”

“Yeah. I think you’re going to like this. I kind of can’t wait.” Pete is indeed bouncing like a little boy, rocking forward on his toes in eagerness.

Patrick wants to like whatever’s coming next an impossible amount. He really hopes he does.

“We’ve got to get smuggled in but once we get to where we’re going, we should be fine.” Pete pulls a hoodie up over his head, disappears into it.

Patrick says, “Oh, no, I didn’t bring a disguise,” and then feels like an idiot, because no one’s going to recognize _him_.

“You wore a hat, it’ll be good,” Pete says. “They’re bringing us up when it’s clear.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees, with no idea what Pete’s talking about, but Pete’s curled his hand into Patrick’s as he leads him along the gravestones, and it is incredibly distracting, that hand-to-hand contact, the _sweetness_ of it, like, the incredible _datingness_ of it. It’s been a long time since Patrick met a guy who held hands with him, he didn’t think about that until it was right here, happening. _Will you remember in the morning if I tell you right now that I might be in love with you?_ thinks Patrick.

“There.” Pete points.

Patrick glances toward the church they’ve arrived at. “St. Pancras Old Parish?”

Even in the low ambient light, Patrick can see Pete’s face fall a little, and feels bad for stealing his surprise. “Oh,” says Pete, obviously trying to tamp down on disappointment, “you know it?”

“Never heard of it,” Patrick says truthfully. “The driver told me. Is this, like, a priest kink thing?”

Pete laughs. “No, it’s not a priest kink thing. Unless you want to do some kind of priest kink thing and I bet I can get that arranged.”

“You’re going to go to Hell,” Patrick informs him.

Pete shrugs. “Eh, sodomy’s a sin, if you’re in for a penny, you might as well be in for a pound, is what I always say.”

“That’s what I always say about sodomy, too,” Patrick drawls.

Pete laughs again and says, “Patrick, don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Okay,” Patrick says warily.

“But you are literally the most incredible person I’ve ever met.”

Patrick’s breath gets trapped halfway out of his lungs because his body forgets how breathing is supposed to operate. So he has to croak out without a breath, “Is there a wrong way to take that?”

Pete smiles at him, impossibly lovely, heart-stoppingly lovely.

And then a voice calls softly into the darkness, “Pete?”

“Ah,” says Pete. “This way.” He tugs Patrick, who’s still trying to relearn how to breathe, to a door, next to which a man is standing. “Andy, meet Patrick. Patrick, this is Andy.”

“Hi,” says Patrick awkwardly.

“Andy’s my PA,” Pete explains. And then, “You know, personal assistant.”

Yeah, because that’s a normal thing for people to have, Patrick thinks but doesn’t say, feeling a little hysterical in the wake of remembering who Pete is and also what he just said to him.

“Hi,” the PA says to him briefly, and then to Pete, “We’re good. This way.”

He leads them inside, down some stairs, through a few hallways, up some more stairs. They see no other people, and Patrick’s relieved, although there’s the hum of murmured conversation coming from elsewhere in the church. Then they emerge into the church’s choir loft, the organ magnificent, and, when Patrick tears his eyes away, he can see that they’re above an old, dimly lit church, filled with maybe a hundred or so people, with a stage set where the altar is, instruments waiting upon it.

Patrick looks at Pete, surprised. The PA has disappeared, and Pete is watching him anxiously. Patrick thinks he might be holding his breath.

“It’s a concert?” Patrick guesses.

Pete nods. “It’s supposed to be the best live concert venue in all of London. According to, you know, sources.”

Patrick smiles, to try to get Pete to relax. And because this is the kind of asshole he is to date, he teases. “Google?”

“No, Helen Mirren,” Pete replies.

Patrick stops smiling. “Oh,” he says faintly.

Pete laughs. “No,” he says, “Google. Helen’s on vacation in the Maldives and wouldn’t return my call.”

“Show-off,” Patrick accuses, lightly and with the opposite of heat, with an impossible warmth, because Pete does look more relaxed now, in reaction to Patrick’s teasing.

He also looks a little embarrassed as he moves past Patrick, toward a picnic blanket that’s been set up in the small space between the organ and the choir’s pews. “I wanted there to be some reason to date Pete Wentz, because otherwise I’m just a fuckton of trouble.”

“The reason to date Pete Wentz is _you_ ,” Patrick says automatically, with creeping annoyance, because he hates when Pete sells himself short like that.

Pete smiles at him and then sinks to the blanket. “Come. They wouldn’t let me have actual bowls and milk and stuff because they were worried we wouldn’t be responsible. We’re lucky I got them to say yes to the coffee, but I think they were persuaded by the fact that we’re using Thermoses. I admit I couldn’t remember how you took your coffee so I just put some cream and sugar into it.” Pete hands a Thermos to Patrick, who’s wandered over slowly, looking at the spread on the blanket. It’s two Thermoses of coffee and a box of Lucky Charms.

Patrick stares, because he doesn’t trust himself to say anything. He has never, ever, ever been on a date before where his chest felt like it might be deciding it needed medical attention.

Pete says anxiously, “Oh, fuck, this was the wrong thing to do, wasn’t it? Fuck. I’m sorry. Of course. You deserve, like, real dinner and real— _Fuck_. Look, if you give me ten minutes, I bet I can get us champagne and caviar—or whatever you want—just—”

“ _Pete_ ,” Patrick cuts him off achingly, and sinks onto the blanket and leans over the box of Lucky Charms and kisses him hard, hard enough that it knocks his hat off his head as he tackles to get closer to him. Pete is panting when Patrick pulls back and leans his forehead against his. “This is good, this is really, really good, this is…” _I’m impossibly charmed_ , is what Patrick thinks. “I’m totally going to put out later tonight,” is what Patrick says.

Pete chokes a laugh. He has a hand warm on the back of Patrick’s neck. Patrick closes his eyes and never wants to move.

He says suddenly, because he has to _say_ , “If this is a thing you do for all the boring record store owners you pick up in every city in the world, please don’t tell me right now, please let’s just…” It’s such a stupid thing to even think. _Please let me live in the fantasy where you’re mine, a little longer_.

Pete says in bewilderment, “What other record store owners I pick up?”

“I don’t know. Baristas. Dry cleaners. Whatever.”

“Patrick.” Pete’s voice sounds warm and fond. His fingertips tickle a trail down Patrick’s neck, under the t-shirt he’s wearing. “This is the first date I’ve been on in, like, fifteen years. This is, definitely, _not_ a thing I do.”

Patrick breathes for a moment longer, then sits back. “Fifteen years,” he says, trying to get himself under control. “I thought _I_ was going through a dry spell.”

Pete smiles. “I got famous at nineteen. You watched the show. How many normal dates do you think you get after that?”

Patrick opens the cereal box thoughtfully. “I would think…well, none, I suppose.” He leans against the back of the choir loft behind them, munching on a handful of Lucky Charms.

Pete follows suit, taking a handful when Patrick offers it to him. “None,” he agrees. “Once, I took this guy on a ‘date,’ and he turned out to be married and I was his free pass. And then a week later, I had the same thing happen with a woman. Like, I don’t count stuff like that as a date.”

“Jesus,” says Patrick, appalled. “I promise I’m not married.”

“See?” Pete winks at him around another handful of Lucky Charms. “This is already better than any of my other dates.”

“You were already better than any of my other dates the first night I met you,” Patrick admits.

“That would make me angry except I am extremely grateful you only dated idiots.”

“I had a type,” says Patrick.

“Was your type boys from Evanston? They’re the worst.”

“Hey now,” says Patrick, and steals a marshmallow out of Pete’s handful.

“You are the exception,” says Pete, smiling. “You make me have hope for Evanston.”

“Well, Evanston didn’t have an Arby’s so where were you going to make out on your devastatingly romantic dates?”

“Hey, you mock it, but Arby’s has a certain charm.”

“It definitely doesn’t,” Patrick says.

“Okay, it doesn’t. Look, when you’re sixteen, you’ll kiss _anywhere_. Where were you going on your extra-refined dates at sixteen?”

Patrick snorts. “No one wanted to date me at sixteen.”

“No one wanted to date you at sixteen?!” Pete echoes, sounding astonished.

“Haven’t you seen the photos all over the internet of me when I was sixteen?” asks Patrick.

“Yes. You were a fucking _snack_. Pretend that’s not a creepy thing for me to say.”

“I watched nineteen-year-old you have a lot of onscreen sex, I think we’re even.”

“Did you like it?” smirks Pete.

“Not even a little bit,” Patrick lies.

Pete opens his mouth, but the lights flicker. Someone starts to make an announcement.

Pete whispers, “It’s starting. You can get up so you can see.”

Patrick realizes that Pete is going to lay low, stay out of sight, not tempt fate. So he is, too. He shrugs. “It’s music,” he whispers back. “I’ll stay here with you and listen.”

He has no idea who’s playing but they sound like a goddamn choir of angels when Pete smiles at him.


	28. Chapter 28

Watching Patrick listen to music is an astonishing event, thinks Pete, awed. Patrick listens intently, sometimes a smile flickers, sometimes there’s a twitch of his eyebrows, sometimes his fingers tap a beat on his thighs and Pete watches him make an effort to still them. Patrick is completely engrossed in the concert and it’s enchanting.

Pete hasn’t heard a single note.

He’s been too busy watching Patrick listen to actually listen himself.

At some point, Patrick finally emerges from the music enough to sense his gaze, gives him a slightly quizzical look. Pete shakes his head a little, because how can he explain that Patrick is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, that there will never be any sight as arresting as Patrick, that Pete has seen the most beautiful places in the world and the most beautiful people in those places and Patrick is…

Patrick’s look shifts from quizzical to intent. Patrick glances at Pete’s lips. In the darkened burrow of their choir loft, it could just be the two of them in the entire world. Pete’s heart pounds in his chest, echoes through his head, makes him a little dizzy, as Patrick ducks in, steals his air. Patrick’s eyes are so serious, so thoughtful, study him so closely. Pete’s been naked in front of Patrick lots of times, and this gaze makes him feel stripped bare again, and it’s fine, it’s _fine_ , he trusts being bare in front of Patrick in the most incredible way, he didn’t know such a thing was even possible.

Pete closes his hand into the front of the t-shirt Patrick’s wearing. Patrick finally leans forward, closing the final space between them, and kisses him.

It’s a different sort of kiss than the kisses they’ve shared before. It’s passionate but not urgent. It’s gentle. It’s sweet. It’s Patrick mapping him out, taking notes, archiving him, noting when Pete jerks against him, when he bites back a groan. Pete knows Patrick’s taking mental notes because he always repeats whatever he just did to get that reaction, curious, naughty, teasing, Pete fucking _loves_ him, how do you find someone who’s all that all at once.

Patrick spreads him out over the blanket. Pete goes, boneless, eyes closed, floating in how he feels, the buzz around him. There’s music in his ears, but it’s just the soundtrack to what Patrick’s doing, there is nothing more important than what Patrick’s doing. Patrick kisses and kisses and kisses him, hands curled together, Pete pressed back against the blanket, pinned to the floor, but he doesn’t feel at all trapped, he feels sheltered.

Patrick puts his hands on Pete, rests them over his galloping heart, spans them across his ribcage. Patrick presses his tongue to Pete’s throbbing pulse, maps out the valleys and ridges of his clavicle. Pete closes his hands in Patrick’s hair and thinks _Patrick_ and _Patrick_ and _Patrick_ , what does anything else matter.

There’s a spot, right at the base of Pete’s ribcage, that, when nipped at, causes Pete an oddly hot rush of sensation. Why there, that spot, those nerves, Pete has no idea, and he has literally never noticed it before until Patrick uncovers it now, and hums softly into Pete’s skin, harmony with the singer in the church below, and then nips again, and Pete pulls Patrick’s hair and gasps for breath.

And then there is wild applause.

Patrick jerks, startled, straightening up to sit, disheveled, astride Pete’s legs.

Pete, deprived of his grip on Patrick’s hair, opens his eyes blearily and looks up at Patrick. He’s the most gorgeous thing Pete’s ever seen, and Pete has to close his eyes again because he can’t look directly into the sun like that. He says, breathing hard, “Really good performance.”

And Patrick starts laughing. Full-bodied. Head thrown back. Pete opens his eyes again to witness the sight. Patrick, delighted. By Pete.

Okay, so, maybe they were just engaged in inappropriate activities for a church but at this moment Pete really, really, really strongly believes there is a God.

“Wow,” he says softly, when Patrick’s laughter has drawn to a close, when he’s wiping at tears under his glasses.

Patrick gives him a curious look, an amused smile lingering on his lips. “What?”

_I made you laugh_ , Pete thinks. Pete says, “Keep doing that.”

Patrick lifts an eyebrow. “I’m not doing anything at the moment.”

“You’re laughing. It’s incredible.”

“It’s laughter,” Patrick says. “It’s not a big deal.”

Pete sits up. “Are you going to fight with me about the attractiveness of your laughter?”

“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” Patrick says.

“Yeah?” Pete leans forward, irresistibly, to taste that joy on Patrick’s lips. It tastes like Pete, which is _amazing_. “What wrong idea?” he murmurs against him.

“That you’re funny,” Patrick answers breathlessly.

Pete’s lips twitch. He bites Patrick’s lower lip. Then he makes himself pull back. “Listen,” he says, “I had a real dinner planned after this, should we go?”

“Yes.” Patrick nods his head firmly. “We should go. I promise to sit and enjoy your dinner and not do…whatever.” Patrick gestures at Pete.

“I am not complaining, Evanston,” Pete says.

“We were a horrible audience, though.” Patrick looks chagrined. “That poor band.”

“I’ll tweet about how awesome they were later tonight.” Pete lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

Patrick blinks at him for a second, then shakes his head in something like disbelief. “Yeah, but how do you know they were awesome?”

“You really enjoyed the first part of the concert. You were really into it. It was nice.”

Patrick blushes. It’s as enchanting as Patrick’s blushes always are. Pete is going to get high just on Patrick’s blushes, he thinks.

He goes on, “So, I’ll tweet that the band was awesome, because I trust your taste. I won’t mention that their lead singer wasn’t that great.”

Patrick frowns. “What was wrong with their lead singer?”

“He wasn’t you,” Pete replies.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Okay.”

“No, no,” Pete says earnestly, “no one’s got a lead singer as good as you.”

“Pete, I sang you one song, it wasn’t that good.”

“Excuse me.” Pete is indignant. “It was fucking _transcendent_.”

“Transcendent?” Patrick’s tone should be in the Skepticism Hall of Fame.

Pete shakes his head at him. “You are—”

“Pete,” Andy says from behind him.

Pete glances over his shoulder. He hopes the glance says _terrible timing, leave me here with Patrick forever_. “What?” is what he says out loud.

“Did you want to get out of here? The crowds have been shepherded to the front, so we can get you out the back.”

“Dinner,” Pete says. “Right. Dinner.” He gets to his feet. “We can continue this debate in the car.”


	29. Chapter 29

They don’t continue the debate in the car. They make out instead. Patrick’s okay with this turn of events.

Pete keeps saying, “You are… You are…” and then never finishing the sentence, and Patrick tries to imagine what it is Pete wants to say, what it is that he can only describe with his lips and his tongue and his teeth, the dark golden depths of his eyes, the way he smiles right before he kisses.

Patrick feels utterly in over his head, and it should probably be more alarming than it is. He thinks that he read once that right before you die of, like, hypothermia, you get all warm and comfy and fall asleep. If he’s about to die of Pete exposure, he’s in that phase where he can’t be bothered to care. He feels warm and comfy. He’s ready to fall right in.

There’s a knock on the window behind Pete’s head and he calls, “Yeah?” without really pausing in nibbling behind Patrick’s ear.

“Um, are you still having dinner?” a voice calls back awkwardly.

Patrick flushes scarlet. He can feel the heat of the blush. He says, “Dinner, dinner, definitely,” with a hand on Pete’s chest to urge him up in the right direction. He’s got to be, like, a person who doesn’t just fuck Pete Wentz. Just fucking Pete Wentz wouldn’t be worth all of this, right? He needs to more-than-fuck Pete Wentz to deserve Pete Wentz’s voice in his ear: _I think I might be in love with you_. Patrick can’t have that be just about sex, Patrick can’t… Fuck, Patrick is _so_ over his head and keeps sinking deeper.

“Dinner,” Pete mumbles, “right, dinner,” and bites at Patrick’s jaw before straightening away from him. “Okay. Dinner. I hope this is okay.”

Patrick has a flash of panic. It is so, so easy to forget who Pete is when they’re making out like teenagers in the back of a car, but every once in a while it pushes its way in and suddenly Patrick’s thinking, _Oh, no, are we at Buckingham Palace or something?_

They’re not.

They’re at the fucking Hard Rock Café.

And it’s empty. There’s no one in it but the two of them.

Pete rented out the Hard Rock Café.

They’re met at the door and seated at a table and Pete’s saying, “God, I just want, like, a regular terrible American beer, not a dramatic pint or anything, just something truly awful that tastes like home,” and Patrick’s brain finally catches up to what’s happening and he blurts out, “Did you rent out the Hard Rock Café?”

Pete stills, looks up from the menu. “I did,” he says slowly. “I… Yeah. Was that… Should I—”

Patrick can’t help it. He starts laughing. He starts laughing and then he can’t stop. Pete is really, honestly, the only person who inspires this in him, who makes him laugh until he cries. It’s so goddamn annoying.

Pete’s watching him with that smile on his face, that one that’s half-delight and half-quizzical, like he thinks maybe this is a good response but he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. Patrick loves that smile. Patrick’s stalked Pete down a thousand internet rabbit holes now, and he’s never seen that smile anywhere but _here_. “Good?” Pete says when Patrick manages to stop laughing. “Is it good I did this?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, which is so inadequate, but he’s no good with words, he’s no good with any of this, he’s not…worthy of any of the lengths Pete clearly went to here. He says, “Pete, I—” and then the waiter says heartily, “Can I get the two of you anything to drink?”

They’re literally the only people in the restaurant, Patrick feels like the waiter could have better timing, but whatever.

Pete says, “Listen, I want, like, the most terrible American beer you have on draft. What do you want, Trick?”

Patrick thinks it’s the first time Pete’s called him _Trick_ , shortened his name, swallowed that first syllable, made it seem like he was so used to saying his name that now it was offhand, absent-minded. Patrick clears his throat and says to the waiter, “I will have a pint of Tennent’s.”

Pete makes a face at him over the table, stupidly teasing, it’s dorky and ridiculous and so fucking charming.

The waiter says, “Right-o. Do you want to hear the specials?”

Pete looks at him. “We’re the only people in the place.”

“Right, but we still have specials.”

“That’s okay,” Pete says. “I’m having a burger. Medium-well, please.”

“Me, too,” Patrick says, because he doesn’t really care what he eats.

“And we’ll split nachos,” Pete decides.

The waiter takes their menus and departs.

Patrick says, “Do you ever eat vegetables?”

Pete laughs. “The nachos are going to have salsa, tomatoes are a vegetable.”

“Tomatoes are a fruit.”

“Yeah, that’s a weird thing people say when they’re being semantically irritating,” Pete replies.

Patrick chuckles.

“Normally I am on an extremely strict diet,” Pete continues, “but it’s okay, I don’t have a nude scene until next week, so I’ll just starve myself for a few days then.”

Patrick stares at him in horror as the waiter puts their beers down. “Hang on,” he says, “I don’t think you’re joking.”

“Patrick, no one in real life has abs like the ones you see in sex scenes, those are tricks of severe deprivation.” Pete sips his beer like this isn’t super alarming.

“But…” Patrick frowns. “Well, now I feel guilty for ogling _Take This to Your Grave_.”

“I was nineteen. It’s easier to have abs like that when you’re nineteen.”

_Christ, who takes care of you?_ Patrick thinks. Because he doesn’t think Pete does. He doesn’t think anyone does. He says, “This sounds—”

“Can we talk about something else?” Pete interrupts, nudging his finger through the condensation on his glass of beer. “This is supposed to be a date. I’d love to talk about something else. I mean, I think you’re supposed to talk about fun things on dates. Like, I don’t know, who got caught with weed under the bleachers. That’s what I remember talking about on dates.”

Patrick lets him change the subject, falls into a joke. “Was it you with the weed under the bleachers? I bet it was you.”

“I was straight-edge,” Pete retorts indignantly. “One-hundred percent. Tell me what you talk about on grown-up dates.”

“Oh, all those grown-up dates I go on?”

“Come on,” Pete scoffs, “look at you. People take you out for sure. People charm their way into your pants. Don’t even pretend.”

“Says the person who won the title ‘Most Popular Sexual Fantasy’ three years running.”

“Number one, wow, you got deep on the Internet—”

“That wasn’t deep, that was, like, three pages in on your search results,” Patrick defends himself.

“Number two, how do you think they judge that? Is that a survey? Who takes this survey?”

“I thought maybe you were just voting for yourself over and over,” Patrick says.

“No, that’s what I do to try to win best-dressed.”

“You could try dressing better instead.”

“You wound me,” Pete says. “I’m an excellent dresser. Have you seen my ombre turquoise fuzzy sweater? It’s fantastic.”

“They’re not like this,” Patrick says suddenly.

“What?”

“Grown-up dates.”

“What do you mean, they’re not like this? You’ve never had anyone rent out the Hard Rock Café for you before?”

Pete is joking, Patrick can tell, but Patrick is utterly serious, and he wants Pete to understand this. “No, they’re not… They’re not fun. They’re not… They’re mostly listening to the other person drone on and on about their job. And you’re just counting down the minutes until you can make the most polite escape. That’s a grown-up date.”

Pete is silent for a moment, studying Patrick across the table. “Are you counting down the minutes?”

Patrick shakes his head.

“Then I guess this isn’t a date,” says Pete slowly. “What would we call it?”

“Nachos!” exclaims the waiter, making Patrick jump, because he’d been entirely too lost in Pete’s eyes.

The waiter puts down an enormous mound of nachos.

Pete says enthusiastically, “ _Thank_ you,” and piles some onto his plate. Then he says, “Look. Jalapenos.” He holds one up dangling off the tines of his fork. “I bet that’s a vegetable.”

“Are you saying that because it’s green?”

“Yes.” Pete takes a bite of his nachos, watching as Patrick piles some onto his own plate. “So. You said you were going through a dating dry spell, too. I’m a world-famous actor everybody wants for my money. What’s your excuse?”

“My dad died,” Patrick answers simply.

Pete chokes on the chip he’d just bit into. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he manages, gulping at his beer. “Oh, fuck, I’m the _worst_.”

Patrick shakes his head. “No, I mean, you had no reason to think—Anyway. My dad died. Seven months ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Pete says sincerely, those liquid gold eyes earnest on him.

“Thanks,” Patrick responds, because he never knows what else to say when people say that to him. He takes an awkward swallow of his beer, then says, “I didn’t know him that well. I mean, we didn’t talk much. He left when I was seven. And he moved here and he got married and he had another family and I was the weird American kid and he’d send me, like, a hundred bucks at Christmas and _sometimes_ my birthday. When he remembered. I don’t say all this to be like, oh, woe is me, but just like, it’s weird when _that’s_ your dad, and he dies, and you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel about that.” Patrick’s never said all this out loud, but now that he’s started he can’t stop.

And Pete just says, “Yeah, that makes total sense, for sure,” all thoughtful and supportive and not even a little bit like Patrick’s an awful son.

“He left me the building. The one the record store’s in? Like, I get this call that my dad’s dead and it’s like, okay, I don’t know how to feel about it, and I kind of just go on with my life, and then the next week I get a call from this woman claiming to be my stepsister and she’s like, ‘Congratulations, you now own real estate in London.’”

Pete is listening intently, his elbow on the table, his chin on his fist. The nachos are forgotten. “So you moved here?”

“Not immediately. At first I was like, What the fuck am I going to do with real estate in London? So I thought maybe I’d sell it, you know? I could have used the money. I had this dead-end pointless job at somebody else’s record store in Chicago, and it wasn’t like my music was going anywhere, and my mom was like, ‘You should just sell the land and finally get something from your father for a change.’ And when she said that…it made me want to see the place. Like, I felt like he’d barely thought about me for two decades and then he left me a _building_? I thought it must be, like, some run-down shack of a building, fit for condemning, in some terrible area of the city. Before I sold it, I decided I wanted to see it. And it…wasn’t. It wasn’t any of the things I’d thought. It was a nice building, with apartments to live in, and a little empty storefront on the bottom floor, and I… I moved in.” Patrick shrugs and sips his beer, embarrassed. “Still don’t know why he left it to me, though.” Patrick turns back to his nachos, hoping they can just drop all of this now.

“What do you mean?” says Pete incredulously. “He left it to you because he loved you.”

Patrick lifts a dubious eyebrow at Pete. “Did he?”

“Of course he did. He left you a building, Patrick. Why didn’t he leave it to your stepsister instead?”

“She’d like to know the answer to that, too. I mean, she pretends she doesn’t care but she keeps trying to be friends and I know it’s because she’s trying to figure out why he’d leave it to me.”

“Patrick. Because he _loved_ you.”

Pete sounds so sure, so sincere, it’s irritating. “He had a funny way of showing it,” Patrick retorts, because, well, that _hurts_ , to think that his father loved him. Patrick’s never really thought that. It’s easier, somehow, to think his father hated him, didn’t care. Than that he loved him and died without ever really knowing who he was.

“Some people don’t know how to love right. Or have a hard time with it. I don’t know. I don’t think it necessarily means they love any less. They just… I don’t know. Like I think… I don’t want to make this about me, but I don’t think I was a son who made it clear how much I loved. I was lucky, I had this great dad, and he died suddenly and I’m not sure he knew that I loved him. I was a selfish, bratty kid and even though I loved him, I worry I didn’t love _right_. I don’t know.” Pete sends him a quick smile. “You would be completely justified in leaving this date now, for the record.”

Pete looks small and vulnerable and Patrick can’t imagine him exposed all the time for every vulture to pick at. He says, “I’m not leaving. You rented out the entire Hard Rock Café for me. Who walks out on that kind of date? I mean, I’m at least going to stay for the burger.”

Pete flickers another smile. He says, “I’m sorry about your dad.”

Patrick says, “I’m sorry about _your_ dad.” Pete’s family is seldom mentioned online. Patrick didn’t even realize Pete’s dad was dead. “I’m sure he knew you loved him.”

“I don’t know.” Pete lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I just wish I’d said it. You know?”

_I might be in love with you_ , Patrick thinks. Patrick says, “Yeah.” 

They share a long moment of gazing into each other’s eyes, and then the waiter chirrups, “Here are your hamburgers!”


	30. Chapter 30

Pete has no idea how late it is. He has no idea how long they’ve been there. The conversation meandered, through television shows they watched when they were younger, through opinions on which pizza place in Chicago was the best, through a debate on Pluto’s status on a planet. They switched from beer to coffee. Pete watched Patrick cream and sugar his, memorizing how he took it, wanting to make it for him every morning. Would that alarm Patrick? Pete wonders. If he says it right now: _I want every morning, Patrick. I want every night. I want this_.

Patrick is saying something about learning how to ski and being so, so bad at it.

“Because you didn’t go with me,” Pete tells him automatically. Patrick should do everything with him. Patrick paints the world anew. Pete can’t take his eyes off of him.

“Are you good at skiing?” Patrick asks him, smiles at him, so many times Patrick has smiled at him now, Pete is dangerously drunk on Patrick, drunk and high, his toxicology report would be off the charts. “I bet you are, you’re good at everything.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s true from where I’m sitting.”

“It’s smoke and mirrors. I’m bad at so much. I’m bad at… _so much_.”

“Like what?” asks Patrick. He’s leaned back in his seat, his gaze intent, as he sips his coffee.

Pete takes a deep breath. “Where to fucking start?”

“Who is it who tells you you’re bad at things?” Patrick asks suddenly.

Pete is startled. “What?”

“Is it a voice inside your head? Is that where it’s coming from?”

Pete blinks, confused. “I… What? I don’t know…”

Patrick leans forward across the table, beckoning at Pete until he does likewise. They’re close now, not quite close enough to kiss but it would only take another few inches. Pete can see the freckles dusted across Patrick’s nose and cheeks, the yellow in his irises close to his pupil.

Patrick whispers, “Pete Wentz.”

“Yeah?” Pete whispers back.

“Not you. The subconscious one. The troll one who lives in the back of your head and says mean things. Is he listening?”

Pete doesn’t know what to say. He says, “Um.”

“Okay, good, I’ll take that to mean he’s listening. Stop it, okay? No more. You’re perfect as you are. Just as you are.”

Pete stares at him. He’s too stunned to do anything. He can’t even kiss him. He’s frozen into place.

“Do you believe me?” Patrick whispers.

Actually, when Patrick says it, just like that, Pete _does_ believe him. He closes his eyes. “Yeah, but you—”

“Hey.” Patrick’s finger presses to his lips, stopping his words. “Pete Wentz,” he murmurs, brushing his nose against his. “Shut up.” Then he kisses him.

It’s a sweet kiss, a gentle kiss, a _destructive_ kiss. Pete shudders.

“Patrick,” he says, and kisses back. “Patrick, Patrick.”

“Which Pete Wentz am I talking to right now?” Patrick asks, a smile in his voice and against Pete’s lips.

“The one who wants to proposition you,” Pete replies. The angle of the kiss is awkward and unrewarding. Pete wants a different position.

“Yeah?” Patrick kisses with promise, sly flirtation. “What’s your offer?”

“It’s filthy,” Pete promises.

“I’m all in,” says Patrick.

***

Pete is an ethereally beautiful, otherworldly sort of creature. The way he always is, but the way he especially seems to be post-coital, stripped of any attempt at artifice, achingly open, sleepy and snuggly next to Patrick. Pete like this is _unbearable_.

“Hey,” Patrick whispers at him, and his eyes flutter open. He sends a sleepy smile Patrick’s way, stupidly gorgeous. “Thank you.”

“Oh.” Pete closes his eyes again and stretches, his smile curving in self-satisfaction. “Pleasure was _all_ mine, Evanston.” There’s a beat, then he opens his eyes. “Well, like, _mostly_ mine. Some of the pleasure was yours, too, right?”

“I’m not talking about your dick,” Patrick says.

“Oh, well, that’s a shame, I always like us to be talking about my dick. Or your dick. Would you like to talk about your dick instead?”

“I meant all of tonight,” Patrick insists. Having an honest-to-God linear, dick-less conversation with Pete Wentz takes intense willpower. “Thank you for a really lovely date.”

Pete’s smile loses its smugness, grows wide and genuine. “Yeah, it was good, right? You liked it?”

“Loved it.”

“I should go on more dates,” Pete flirts. He nudges closer, coquettish and coy. “Should I go on more dates, Patrick?”

“Are you trying to get me to ask you out?”

“Look, if you don’t ask me out, someone else one-hundred-percent will, I’m the world’s most eligible bachelor, maybe you didn’t see that?”

Yeah, like Patrick needs to be reminded of that. “If I took you out, it wouldn’t be renting the Hard Rock Café.”

“I don’t need that,” Pete says, suddenly harsh and serious. “You know I don’t need that, right? I don’t _want_ that. People always think I became a movie star for the perks and let me tell you, there _are_ no fucking perks.”

“Why’d you become a movie star?” Patrick asks, curious and calm.

Pete says, “Because I…” He takes a breath, then another. “Because I wanted people to look at me,” he says finally. “I wanted the entire goddamn planet looking at me.”

“Well, you got it,” Patrick notes softly.

“Yeah, but it turns out… It turns out maybe I just wanted _you_ looking at me.”

“Oh, Pete,” sighs Patrick. “That’s… That’s a…”

“It’s not a line,” Pete whispers, inching closer.

“No, I know,” Patrick whispers back. “That’s why it’s…”

“You can have every eye on the planet looking at you and be goddam invisible. Did you know that? Completely invisible. So, like, I’m probably too much. I get that. I’m probably a fucking misery to date. I’m so sorry about that. I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened and everything that’s probably going to happen if you…if you don’t come to your senses and leave. But like, I… You make me feel seen, and, Patrick, I promise that, if you give me a chance, I’ll try so hard to not be…to not be, like…or to be…you know.” Pete tries a hopeful, nervous smile. “I need a script.”

“You don’t need a script,” Patrick manages. “Christ, you don’t need a script.” Patrick closes his eyes. And hey, if Pete can leap with this much faith, this much trust, this much courage, surely Patrick can do _something_. “Hey, Pete,” he murmurs, and leans forward so he can speak directly into his ear. “Will you remember in the morning if I tell you right now that I might be in love with you?”

Pete kisses him.


	31. Chapter 31

Pete’s call time is early again. Really, he’s about to enter a grueling filming schedule and he’s hardly ever going to have free time and he probably should have explained that to Patrick before Patrick fell asleep. Now he doesn’t know when he’s going to get a chance to explain it. He’s going to disappear and Patrick’s going to be like, _Wow, I wonder what happened to that hot guy who took me on that date that one time_ , while Pete is caught in endless Butch-required takes.

Pete stares up at the ceiling, anxious. Patrick’s breaths next to him are slow and even and they sound in Pete’s ear like _fuck…up…_ drawn out over and over again.

Pete rolls over, toward the nightstand, opens the drawer, and takes out the battered notebook he shoved in there. A notebook goes with Pete everywhere, for moments like this, when writing is the only way the growing panic can get out of him.

Pete writes, _I will leave you high and dry. I’m only good for the latest trends. I’m only good because you can have almost famous friends. You only hold me up like this because you don’t know who I really am._

Pete stares at his words. Jesus, he is _such_ a fucking loser.

He looks over at Patrick, sound asleep. His hand is close to Pete, like he fell asleep reaching for Pete. Pete looks at that hand for a long time, open, honest, sincere. Patrick doesn’t see the Pete in these words. Patrick sees a completely different Pete.

And Pete believes him.

Pete takes a deep breath and turns the page of his notebook. _I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive (now I only waste it dreaming of you)_.

He rips the page out and folds it up, gets out of bed and tucks it into Patrick’s discarded shoe. Then he looks at the time and sighs. Then he gets back into bed and shakes Patrick gently, leans down to kiss his earlobe as he whispers, “Patrick.”

“Mmph,” mumbles Patrick. A clumsy Patrick arm collides with Pete, trying to pull him back down. “Go back to sleep, you’re bad at sleeping in this hotel, next time we stay at my apartment where you sleep…and sleep…and sleep…”

He _does_ sleep well at Patrick’s. Patrick’s magic. “I have to go be on set, and I’m basically going to be working, like, around the clock.”

“Uh-huh,” says Patrick, clearly half-asleep.

Pete’s picked a poor time for this conversation. “Listen, you are not going to remember this in the morning.”

“Mmm, I remember everything you tell me. You might be in love with me.”

Pete can’t help that he smiles down at Patrick’s sleepy, clingy form. “The ‘might’ is no longer a current assessment.”

“Okay,” Patrick yawns.

“I’m going to have Andy get in touch with you about security, okay? I don’t want you without security.”

“Yup,” Patrick mumbles, turning his head more thoroughly into his pillow.

“I’m going to miss you a lot while I’m working, trust me, it’s not very glamorous and I’m going to be miserable and you’ve got to text me lots of stupid gifs.”

“Stupid gifs, got it,” says Patrick, “can you go back to sleep now?”

Pete chuckles. “No, I’m trying to tell you—Never mind, sleep well, I’ll talk to you in the morning.” Pete leans down to kiss Patrick’s cheek.

“Thank you,” Patrick breathes softly. “You’ve been perfect.”

Pete gets called _perfect_ so often. Sometimes Andy reads them out loud to him, all the tweets and posts talking about his perfect eyes, perfect lips, perfect ass, how he’d be the perfect boyfriend, husband, lover, etc.

This is a different sort of perfect. “Thanks,” Pete smiles, and gets out of bed.

***

When Patrick wakes up, there’s a man in the room with him, and it’s not Pete.

Patrick blinks blearily for a moment, before waking fully and sitting up, fumbling for the glasses he left on the nightstand. He’s trying to prepare explanations for why he’s in a bed in a room he’s not paying for, like, probably they can just Google _Pete Wentz’s new boyfriend_ and verify his story, and then he gets his glasses on and his vision coalesces and the fuzzy guy across the room becomes Pete’s agent.

“Oh,” Patrick says. He can’t help the frown that spreads across his face. He knows he should probably be nice to Pete’s agent, but, well, he doesn’t like the dude. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” he says calmly, with an unkind smile on his face. “Wondering what you’re doing in a room I’m paying for.”

Patrick is uncomfortably aware he’s naked under the sheet pulled up over his lap. He’s really very lucky the sheet _was_ pulled up over his lap. His clothes are in a trail through the room, out into the rest of the suite. There’s one shoe halfway to the bedroom door, while Patrick is pretty sure the other shoe got tossed haphazardly onto the dining room table. Things got confusing. He tries not to pay much attention to all the evidence of debauchery throughout the suite and more attention to the fact that this guy is being a creep by being here in the middle of it. “I think Pete’s paying for the room, isn’t he?” Patrick asks acidly.

“Semantics,” the agent says, his smile in place, his eyes not leaving Patrick’s face. Fuck, what’s this guy’s name? Patrick can’t remember it and it’s irritating. He willfully made himself forget it after the last time this guy was a total dick to him. “I think I paid you a large sum of money to go away, didn’t I?”

“I think I didn’t cash the check,” Patrick retorts.

“No,” the guy muses. “You didn’t. Why is that? Are you holding out for more?”

“Why?” Patrick challenges. “Are you here to offer more?”

“I don’t negotiate against myself,” the guy replies calmly. “That’s what makes me such a good agent. Why don’t you make me an offer?”

“There’s no offer,” Patrick says stubbornly. Patrick wants to ask, _Does Pete know you do this stuff?_ But he feels like that’s a conversation for Pete. Patrick just wants this guy to go the fuck away.

The guy unfolds a piece of paper and reads from it. “I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive, now I only waste it dreaming of you.” He folds the piece of paper back up. “He thinks he’s a poet, you know. He told me he would like to write a book of poetry. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the self-centered, whiney, pathetic book Pete Wentz would write? What would everyone think if they got exposed to _that_ Pete Wentz? All my hard work, all the years of effort crafting him into something incredible, into the most marketable man in the world…” The guy’s eyes rove over Patrick’s face. “And look how he throws it all away.”

Patrick wants to say a lot of things. Patrick wants to say, _Oh, are you the one who makes Pete think he can’t trust himself?_ He wants to say, _I think Pete’s the one who did all the hard work_. He wants to say, _I bet Pete would write a great book._ He wants to say, _Hang on, was that note supposed to be for me?_

He says, “Fuck you.” Because that’s just the kind of eloquent Patrick Stump is.

The agent smiles silkily at him. He says, “I have outlasted so many of you—”

And the thing is, Patrick’s not playing that head game anymore. “I don’t think you have,” Patrick interrupts hotly. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything like me. I think you’re fucking terrified. I think if I called up Pete right now and said, ‘Pete, quit the movie, I want to go see Antarctica,’ he just might do it, and you know it, too. So if I were you, I’d be thinking that I’d be really, really nice to me.” This is not quite the level of confidence Patrick feels, but Patrick’s got experience with bullies. Patrick knows you can’t let them see you tremble, ever. A little bluster goes a long way: it’s a language they understand.

And it works. The agent loses his louche pose and his mocking smile, straightens his posture and his lips all at once, snaps, “You think you know him, and you have _no idea_ who he is. You have no idea what he’s done, you have no idea what Pete’s capable of.”

“Actually,” says Patrick, calm and sweet now that he’s managed to provoke the motherfucker, “I think you’re the one who doesn’t know what Pete’s capable of, and you’re just figuring it out now. I should probably get dressed, have you seen my underwear anywhere?”

The guy fumes at him, impotently furious, crumples the little note before flinging it to the floor and marching out.

“Yeah, have a goddamn nice fucking day,” Patrick mutters, and then wonders if it’s going to be a problem that Pete’s agent hates him.


	32. Chapter 32

Make-up is not happy about the circles under Pete’s eyes.

Pete is trying to make himself give a fuck.

“Look at you,” Bebe purrs, coming up behind him, and then pokes at the hickey make-up has been huffing over. “You’ve been debauched.”

“Don’t you read the internet?” Pete replies. “I’m always debauched. Watch out, make-up’s been trying to cover that for an hour now.”

Make-up huffs. Her name is Corrie and she hates him.

“I could add a bite to our highly choreographed sex scene,” Bebe suggests, pulling herself up on an empty spot of make-up counter.

“Butch’d have a fit.”

Bebe shrugs. “Butch might like the spontaneity.”

Pete lifts his eyebrow. “Butch? We literally had to cut rain from a scene because he didn’t like the direction the drops were taking when they hit the windowpane.”

Bebe grins. “Pete, this movie has been fun, what am I going to do without you?”

“Well, it’s not over yet,” says Pete grimly.

“Nope, the busiest stretch is to come,” Bebe agrees.

Pete’s been trying not to think about it. All the fucking night shoots, the semi-public sex scene, this weird scene he’s got where he’s supposed to try to infiltrate the changing of the guard. This is a weird fucking movie he’s in, okay? 

“And then, of course, the shoot will move back to California,” Bebe continues.

Pete startles in the make-up seat so sharply that it makes Corrie poke him in the eye.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he says, eye screwed tight while tears stream out of it, ruining all of Corrie’s hard work.

“Oh, no,” says Bebe, “did you just give yourself a black eye? Butch is going to kill you.”

Pete looks at Bebe with his one good eye, while Corrie, fuming in her head so loudly that Pete can hear the telepathic curse words, tries to mop up his tears and frowns at his eye. He says, “What’s the date today?”

“October 30. Big Halloween plans with your boyfriend? Oh, wait, we’re going to be knee-deep in some body of water, what was it, some pond in Hyde Park or something?”

October 30. The London shoot finishes on November 6. Pete remembers this because Gabe and William are planning a costume party for November 7, called Week After Halloween Party Because Pete’s in London on Halloween. It’s a long title. Not catchy. But it stood out to Pete when they told him. Otherwise, Pete never knows dates. Pete knows his filming schedule, but not things like days of the week. Not things like _one fucking week left in London_.

He stares at Bebe with his one good eye. _October fucking thirtieth_. This is a disaster.

He’s distracted all morning but luckily the scene just requires him to endlessly chase a yellow balloon down the street as it flies away. Halfway through they change it to a red balloon. Then back to yellow. He doesn’t bother to try to discern the artistic choices Butch is making. At least Corrie managed to cover both the hickey and whatever he did to his eye by freaking out in the make-up chair.

Pete spends a lot of time standing on the edges of set, waiting for resets, and doesn’t call Patrick, because he doesn’t know what he’s going to say. When he finally escapes back into his trailer and calls him, Patrick’s voice is so calm and even and _real_ that Pete’s hysteria feels over-the-top and awkward. God, he really is such a goddamn disaster, he finally meets this guy, and likes this guy, and gets this guy to like him back, and now he’s going to be like, _I forgot to mention I’m leaving London next week, actually, I forgot I was leaving London next week period, oops_. Like the goddamn disaster he always endlessly is, motherfucker.

“Hi,” says Pete breathlessly.

“Hi,” Patrick replies again. “Listen. I’ve got Heidi here—”

“Who’s Heidi?”

“I don’t know, she said you hired her? You think I need security or something?”

“Oh, yeah. You need security. Andy handled it for me. I’m sure Heidi is good.”

“I’m sure Heidi is great. I’m sure she’s the most fantastic bodyguard in the history of time. I don’t need _security_.”

Pete smiles, falls into the rhythm of communication with Patrick. Patrick always does this, makes him forget to panic. He fucking loves that about Patrick. “Where are you right now?”

“At my store. Doing my job.”

“Great. Is there anyone outside?”

“Of course,” Patrick replies primly. “It’s a public street.”

“Are there any people outside because you’re dating Pete Wentz?”

“I mean, I’m sure that—” Patrick gives up and sighs. “Not many. It’s really not that many. I could handle them.”

“Patrick, don’t take this the wrong way, you couldn’t handle a fucking fly.”

“I handle flies _all the time_. And what’s the right way to take that, do you think?”

Pete laughs. “Sometimes you get this little British lilt to your voice and it’s kind of sexy.”

“I just want you to understand that I know how to throw a punch.”

“I’m not that kind of boy, but we can talk about safe words or something, if that’s really important to you.”

Patrick sighs. “I’m trying to be _serious_.”

“Are you? About what?”

“I don’t remember now,” Patrick says petulantly. “How’s work going?”

_Only a week left_ , thinks Pete. He says, “I chased a balloon down a street. I think I did a good job.”

“Your job is weird.”

“ _Your_ job is weird.”

“Clever,” says Patrick. “Wilmette wit.”

Pete laughs.

“Security,” Patrick says. “We were talking about security. I was trying to be serious about security. And how I don’t need it.”

“You need it.”

Patrick is silent for a second. Then he says, “Hey, when am I going to see you again?”

“Big Halloween plans?”

“Zero Halloween plans. I’m just wondering.”

Pete sighs and looks around his stupid trailer. “I don’t know. I’m going to try to figure it out.” _We need to talk_ , he doesn’t want to say. _Want to move to California with me?_ he doesn’t want to say. “I’m going to steal some time to see you. I’m going to make it work.”

“Show up in the middle of the night,” Patrick suggests.

“I will. I will ring your bell and I will call you ‘Evanston,’ how’s that?”

“Don’t be followed this time.”

“Yeah, I can give that a try, but it’s probably safer just to not make out in the doorway.”

“Good call,” Patrick agrees. “Hey.” His voice drops, and Pete wonder who’s listening in, if it’s just Heidi, or if Patrick’s other employees are there, or a genuine customer. “Thank you for the note.”

Pete smiles. “I had to get it out of me, and Twitter seemed inappropriate.”

“This was _much_ better than putting it on Twitter,” Patrick says fervently.


	33. Chapter 33

“I don’t understand why you’re not coming,” Verity pouts. Patrick can’t see her on the other end of the telephone but he can hear the pout loud and clear.

“I can’t,” Patrick lies. He _can_ go. He doesn’t want to.

“But, Patrick. Phoebe and Flora were _so_ looking forward to seeing you.”

“No, they weren’t. Phoebe and Flora have no idea who I am.”

“That is not true, they’re extremely fond of you. Aren’t you, girls? Fond of Uncle Patrick?”

Patrick swears he can hear one of them say, “Who?” vaguely in the background.

Verity says, “Never mind, _we_ miss you, we’ve barely seen you.”

“I was just there, like, the other day.” Patrick waves his hand around. He’s lost all sense of time since fucking Pete Wentz, let’s be honest.

“You were here before you started dating Pete Wentz.”

Patrick sighs. “See, this is what I mean, everyone all night is just going to want to talk to me about fucking Pete Wentz.”

“Yeah, wow, super rough that you’ve got to answer questions about the hot bloke you’re shagging. Patrick! You’re living the dream!”

Patrick _is_ leaving the dream, really, but not because he’s dating Pete Wentz. After all, he’s made an enemy of Pete Wentz’s agent and he still hasn’t figured out how to break that news to Pete because he doesn’t know if it’s worse if Pete doesn’t know what an asshole his agent is or worse if he _does_ know.

But that doesn’t matter, he _is_ living the dream, because he’s dating _Pete_ , and Pete is so great, so incredibly fantastic, so amazing, Pete leaves him love notes, and takes him to hear live music, and kisses him like he never wants to stop. Patrick has waited his entire life to feel _like this_ about someone, and now that it’s happened and he’s not the pathetic single loser anymore, he’s going to hide inside and not rave about it to everyone? Like, Verity’s kind of got a point here.

“Anyway,” Verity continues, “I get that this is all…odd. I understand that. It’s confusing for us, too, how we’ve all suddenly been thrust together. But your father loved you and he loved us and I think he’d like it for us to be… I don’t know. A family.”

 _He loved you_ , Pete’s voice says in Patrick’s head. Maybe his dad loved him, and maybe he never got to really show it. Maybe he didn’t know how. Maybe, for whatever reason, the people who saw that he loved Patrick, who truly grasped it, are these two stepsiblings Patrick’s never met before.

“But,” says Verity, “I don’t want to make you feel—”

“I’ll come,” Patrick blurts out. Fuck, what’s the matter with him? He took on Pete’s agent, and now he’s agreeing to go to Verity’s party.

“Oh, brilliant!” enthuses Verity. “Make sure you wear fancy dress.”

“Fancy dress?” Patrick echoes blankly.

“It’s Halloween!” chirrups Verity, and ends the call. 

Oh, right. A _costume_. What the _fuck_.

Patrick says to Joe, “I have to find a costume.”

“Do you?” says Joe. “Do you really? I mean, does anyone _have_ to find a costume? Can we free ourselves of the constraints of society and do whatever we damn well please? Or just go as a kangaroo, that works, too.” Joe shrugs.

“A kangaroo?” Patrick echoes. “That’s not helpful.”

“You don’t have a kangaroo costume?”

“Do you?”

Joe hesitates. “Well, now you’re making me feel weird.”

“I’m not going as a kangaroo.”

“I wasn’t going to let you borrow it, if that’s what you were going to ask next,” says Joe.

“I’m going to bother Vicky,” Patrick announces. “She’ll be more help.”

It’s Vicky’s day off. Patrick leaves Joe to man the store and goes up to Vicky’s apartment, Heidi follows behind him.

Vicky answers the door with, “Hello, boss bothering me on my day off.” Then she looks at Heidi and says, “Oh, hello, and who are you?” in a tone of voice that Patrick thinks might be her flirty tone of voice.

“This is Heidi,” Patrick says. “She is my bodyguard.”

Vicky looks at him in open delight. “You have a bodyguard now?”

“Pete’s an idiot,” Patrick says, embarrassed.

“Pete’s _protective_. Patrick, that’s bloody _adorable_.”

“No, it’s not. Listen. I need your help.”

“If you’re trying to come up with a scheme to ditch your bodyguard, I’ve got news for you: She’s listening to our every word.”

“I need a Halloween costume. Something easy that won’t make me look too ridiculous when I am inevitably captured on film by paparazzi.”

“Are you going to, like, Kim Kardashian’s Halloween party?”

“What? No. I’m going to Verity’s Halloween party.”

“Not as interesting, but much more surprising.”

“I don’t know, she’s, like, my stepsister and something about family and also, like, I don’t know, Pete’s busy and it’s creepy if I just sit at home watching every time he’s ever appeared on film, right? The other night I watched him do ASMR. It was uncomfortable. I need help.”

“Actually, that sounds hot. Was it hot?”

“Vicky.”

“I’m just saying, you’re spoiled because you get actual proximity to Pete Wentz, the rest of us have to watch ASMR videos, _speaking of_ , we should really get to meet your boyfriend someday and do a friend-vetting.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, and I seriously just came to ask for costume help, but you’re even worse than Joe, and that’s impressive, since Joe suggested I be a _kangaroo_.”

“I’ve never seen you hop,” says Vicky thoughtfully.

Patrick looks at Heidi. “I have the worst friends. They’re probably primarily who you need to be protecting me from.”

Vicky calls after him as he marches away, “He’s totally your boyfriend!”

***

Pete’s day and night drift together, what with the night shoot and then the day shoot and it’s raining so he doesn’t get to see the sun which makes everything even more confusing and when Andy says to him, “You’ve got six hours off,” Pete says, “Cool, I’ll go to Patrick’s,” and doesn’t even think about what day it is until he gets there and Patrick is stepping outside in devil horns and a tail.

“Oh, wow,” Pete says faintly, “this is my lucky day.” He can’t take his eyes off the devil horns nestled in Patrick’s ginger hair, why should that be so hot?

“Pete,” Patrick says in surprise, “did you tell me you were coming?”

“No, I got a break in filming and I told Andy to bring me here.”

“He’s supposed to be napping,” Andy says sternly from the car, because Andy’s the worst.

“Oh,” says Patrick, and glances over Pete’s shoulder. Pete assumes there are photographers back there. He’s almost okay with it, since Patrick looking this delicious should be seen by everyone in the fucking universe. He’s wearing tight black trousers and a red satin shirt. Red satin shirt. Where the fuck did Patrick get a red satin shirt? Pete’s in love with the fucking shirt. “We can go up and—”

“No, where were you going dressed like this?” Pete reaches out to touch a horn with the tip of his finger.

“A Halloween party. But it doesn’t matter, we can—”

Pete brightens. “Really? A Halloween party? _I_ want to go to the Halloween party.” It sounds delightful, this ordinary Halloween party with Patrick’s friends, and Pete will nestle by Patrick’s side and be his date and all of Patrick’s friends will see how good they are together and this is such a normal-person dating thing to do, he wants to do it _very badly_.

“Oh,” Patrick stammers, “I don’t know if—I mean—do you think—”

Pete crashes to the ground. In his head. He would like to also literally crash to the ground but that might be too dramatic, even for him. Because right, of fucking course, Patrick doesn’t want to drag the disaster of his Hollywood movie star boyfriend to a party of nice, normal people. “Right,” he says blithely. “Right. Yes. Of course. No. Of course—”

Patrick looks stricken. “Oh, fuck, that’s not what I—”

“No, no.” Pete shakes his head sharply. “It’s totally okay, I get it—”

“No, we should go to the party, you’re right—”

“Don’t pity-invite me to your party,” Pete snaps. “It’s fine, you go, I can go back to the Goring and—”

“Shh,” Patrick says, eyes flickering past Pete again.

Oh, right, yeah, everyone gets to watch Pete Wentz get rejected by his boyfriend, that’s always how his life fucking goes. “Yeah, no,” he says, and turns to slide back into the car.

Patrick follows. It pushes Pete right up against Andy. They both glare at Patrick.

“You,” Patrick says to Andy. “Out.” He nods at Andy’s car door.

Andy blinks in surprise.

“Go on, you can hang with Heidi on the sidewalk,” says Patrick.

Pete, after a second, looks at Andy. Patrick is apparently determined to do this. “Go,” he says.

Andy frowns but gets out of the car and closes the door.

Pete slides over to the newly vacated seat and closes his eyes wearily. He hears Patrick close the door on his side.

Patrick says, “Come to the party.”

Pete says nothing. He feels tired and cranky and _sad_ , all over again, reminded that he’s not the kind of boyfriend you show off to your friends in a _regular_ way. When he leaves next week, Patrick's going to shrug and go back to his regular life in relief. _Relief_ is what will flash in Patrick's eyes when Pete tells him.

Patrick says, “I’m sorry. Come to the party.”

Pete opens one eye. “It’s fine. I don’t want to go to the party.”

“I want you to come to the party,” Patrick insists.

“I don’t believe you,” says Pete mulishly. Why would Patrick want him to go to the party? 

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick mutters, “you caught me off-guard, I didn’t mean to—I want you to come to the party. I just… I don’t want you to have to spend all night being miserable.”

Pete opens his other eye, confused. “Why would I be miserable if I’m with you?”

Patrick looks at him for a second, then mumbles, “You’re so goddamn annoying,” before ducking in to kiss him. “Please come to the party with me,” he murmurs against his lips. “I want you to come to the party. I was dreading going without you. Please come.” He takes little sips of Pete’s lips, and that’s pretty fucking persuasive.

Pete sighs and kisses back, sweet, shallow kisses he wants to last forever. “You’re a really sexy devil,” he says.

“The tail’s a fucking pain in the ass.”

“Literally?” snickers Pete.

“Please come to the party, who will make the world’s most terrible attempts at being funny if you’re not there?”

Pete breathes, leaning his forehead against Patrick’s. He says, “I don’t want to ruin your party.”

“You won’t.”

“Yes, I will. It’s a nice, normal party and I’ve got bodyguards and paparazzi trailing after me, I’m _sorry_ —”

“Hey. Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it.” Patrick dots kisses along Pete’s cheek, behind his ear, and then tucks his face against Pete’s neck. “I missed you. I’m very happy to see you.”

Pete wants to believe that _so badly_. He feels stupidly fragile. He wants to clutch Patrick to him. He says, “Yeah?”

“So much,” Patrick breathes, almost like he doesn’t want Pete to hear it, and Pete presses his nose into Patrick’s hair, just behind one of his devil horns.

“I don’t have a costume,” Pete says.

“You can wear the tail,” Patrick offers.

“The pain in the ass tail?”

“What can I say, I’m a generous guy.” Patrick shrugs as he straightens up. Then he tips his head at Pete. “What happened to your eye?” He touches it gingerly. It’s not black exactly, just a little red. It was a severe poke.

“Make-up mishap,” Pete says.

“Jesus,” says Patrick, “now I’m glad I didn’t let Vicky put eyeliner on me.”

“Oh,” says Pete fervently, “you should _definitely_ have let Vicky put eyeliner on you, _fuck_ , Patrick.”

Someone knocks on the window behind Patrick.

Pete leans over Patrick and rolls down the window.

Andy holds up his phone and reads from it. “They’re still in the car, do you think they’re shagging in the car? Hashtag Peterick saga.”

Patrick winces. “Seriously?”

Pete says, “Patrick and I are going to a party.”

“Where?” says Andy. “You can’t just take off and—”

“Check Twitter,” Pete says. “Our every move is live-tweeted anyway.” Pete puts the window up and buzzes to the driver, “Let’s go.” He looks at Patrick. “Where are we going?”

Patrick stumbles out an address, checking his phone for it, and then says to Pete, “You made me get a bodyguard, and now you ditched the bodyguard.”

“She’ll find us,” says Pete, unconcerned.

“I don’t really like the Peterick thing.”

Pete doesn’t know what to say. “Like, I know it’s annoying but—”

“No, I mean, like, I get it, people are going to talk. I don’t like the _name_.”

Pete lifts an eyebrow. “What would you rather?”

Patrick frowns. “Pater?”

“No. That’s awful. Do you even know how to make portmanteau couple names?”

“Yeah, it was my minor in college,” Patrick retorts. “I majored in trending hashtag formation.”

“Oh, cool,” says Pete, “ _I_ majored in Instagram selfies, we almost match!”

“You’re the worst at Instagram selfies, I don’t think you’ve ever taken a good selfie, you’re always crooked and half of your face is cut off.”

Pete grins at him. “Have you stalked my Instagram?”

“No,” Patrick denies.

Pete laughs. “Patrick, if you want to be head of my fan club, I am _here_ for that.”

“Only if the fan club is private,” Patrick grumbles, and then blushes.

“Super private,” Pete promises. “For sure.” He rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder.


	34. Chapter 34

“Who’s going to be at this party?” Pete asks, and it’s the first time that he’s betrayed any nerves.

Which is stupid, of course he’s nervous, Patrick should have realized he’s nervous. It’s nerve-wracking to meet new people always, it must be doubly so when you’re Pete Wentz. Maybe this was a really bad idea after all. They should have just gone back up to the apartment. Pete looks exhausted. Patrick should have tucked him up in bed and, like, made him soup or something. Not that Patrick possesses soup. But he’s sure he could have gotten soup from somewhere. He could have asked one of the paparazzi to run down to the store for him, probably. For some reason, Pete had given Patrick the impression he _wanted_ to go to the party, but that can’t possibly be true.

“We don’t have to go,” Patrick says.

“No, I want to go. I really want to go.” Pete pauses. “I just haven’t been to, like, a party without…starlets in a while. Will there be starlets?”

“You had better not make out with any starlets in the bathroom,” Patrick jokes.

“Oh, Patrick, you’ve clearly never been to a Hollywood party, you skip the making out and go right to the good part,” Pete rejoins.

“Oh, I thought that was our first date,” says Patrick lightly, feeling jealous and possessive suddenly.

Pete laughs his braying laugh. Patrick’s never heard that laugh in any of the many interviews he’s watched of Pete online. It makes him feel happy. “Touche,” Pete says into the soft hair on the nape of Patrick’s neck. He’s pressed close and it’s nice and Patrick doesn’t want to bring up his dick of an agent. Later, he thinks. He’ll do it later.

He tips his head against Pete’s and says, “It’s my stepsister’s party. I really don’t know who’ll be there.”

“Oh, your new-ish family,” Pete says. “Cool. I can be helpful.”

“Helpful?”

“I’ll be the curiosity, not you. They won’t gape at you when there’s me there.”

“Pete,” Patrick says, and shrugs his shoulder to dislodge Pete so he can look at him. “I don’t want them gaping at you.”

“Look, trust me, when you can control the gaping, it’s better, I’m used to it, I like the attention.”

“No, you don’t,” Patrick says harshly.

Pete blinks at him. “What?”

“You don’t like the attention. You’ve been telling yourself you do because you like it better than the alternative in your head, which is being ignored, but you don’t like the attention. You just don’t want to be ignored, but it’s not a choice between one or the other, there’s a middle ground. You don’t need to be the center of attention tonight. You can just be Pete.”

Pete shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. I’m always the center of attention, Patrick.”

_Not tonight_ , Patrick thinks. He looks at his watch and sets a mental timer for how long he’s going to let them stay before yanking Pete back to obscurity, when he doesn’t have to perform.

The car stops at Verity’s house, and Patrick steps out onto the sidewalk, Pete following behind him. Pete tugs on the sleeves of the hoodie he’s wearing, bites his lower lip once, before schooling himself out of it. Patrick feels like he’s watching his Pete turn into Pete Wentz again, and it requires Pete to swallow massive anxiety, Patrick can see it happening.

“Hey,” he whispers.

Pete looks at him.

And Patrick doesn’t know what to say, he didn’t think past the _hey_. So he just takes Pete’s hand and squeezes it.

Pete smiles a wide and grateful smile, like he knows what Patrick is trying to do and he appreciates it.

“My stepsister’s name is Verity and she’s married to Paget and my stepbrother is Nigel and…yeah.”

“Got it.” Pete nods. “They like you, I’m sure they’re nice people.”

Patrick makes a face. “I don’t know if they _like_ me.”

“You never think anyone likes you,” Pete replies. “Let’s go in.”

Patrick makes another face at him, and Pete makes a face back, and there’s probably paparazzi somewhere capturing this for some Buzzfeed listicle, _Patrick Stump and the Ugly Faces He Makes_ , so Patrick knocks on Verity’s door.

Verity answers, dressed as a black cat, and exclaims, “Patrick! You came!” and then she looks at Pete and does a literal double-take. Patrick’s never actually seen one of those in real life before. Pete takes it in stride so Patrick supposes he’s seen those a lot.

And Patrick says suddenly, without really thinking it through, “This is Pete, he’s here with me, and if anybody makes him feel like a movie star instead of Pete-who-came-with-Patrick, we’re leaving.” He hopes that came out okay.

Patrick can feel Pete look at him in surprise but he keeps his gaze on Verity, who smiles at him, and then holds her hand out to Pete. “Hi, Pete. I’m Verity. So delighted you could come, won’t you come in?”

Pete shakes her hand and says, “Thank you so much for having me. What a beautiful home.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you to say, come and meet everyone, we’ve been wanting to show off Patrick.”

“Me, too,” Pete replies, with a quick little grin.

Patrick blushes. He supposes it will match his shirt, so that’s something.

Verity laughs. “Can I take your coat?”

Pete’s only wearing a hoodie, and he huddles into it like it’s armor, his hands deep in its pockets. Still nervous then, despite his smooth and charming act. “Nope, I’m good,” he says.

“Look,” Verity says quickly to Patrick in a low voice, “I’m totally on your side with everything about this but Paget is…kind of into Pete.”

Patrick blinks at Verity. “I mean,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say. He totally gets being into Pete but maybe his stepbrother-in-law shouldn’t be into him…

Pete makes a snuffling noise that might be swallowed-down laughter.

Verity says, “He thinks Pete is a good kisser, he might bring it up, I’ll try to keep him away from Pete.”

“Pete’s not kissing _Paget_ ,” Patrick says, aghast, and Verity nods and says, “Be right back,” and scurries off into the crowd.

They haven’t attracted any attention yet, and Patrick’s pleased they can kind of ease into this.

Pete sidles up closer to him and says, “Paget her husband?”

“Yes.”

“Thinks I’m a good kisser?”

“I don’t know, apparently.” Patrick is not looking at Pete because he can sense Pete’s smug grin and Pete doesn’t need that smugness to be validated.

“Did you kiss and tell, Evanston?” Pete asks.

“No, but the Internet did,” Patrick replies primly.

“Ah, true,” Pete says. “Well, I have no current plans to make out with your stepbrother-in-law but if he turns out to be hot, all bets are off.”

“He’s not hot,” Patrick says.

“You’re such a judgmental asshole, I love it,” says Pete, and he is looking at Patrick with a really good expression on his face, like he really does love it. He says, “You didn’t need to do that. But thank you.”

“Be a judgmental asshole?”

“Save me from the attention. But thank you.”

Patrick looks at Pete. He thinks, _Of course I did_. Why does no one ever seem to think to save Pete? If Patrick thinks about it too hard, it could break his fucking heart.

“Bubbles!” Verity exclaims, returning, and thrusts two champagne flutes into their hands. “Now that you’ve been fortified, come and meet everyone.”


	35. Chapter 35

Patrick seems to think this party is going to be too much for him, overwhelming, exhausting. Here’s the thing: Pete Wentz goes to _a lot_ of parties. They are uniformly all awful. They’re filled with very pretty and very conniving people, and every conversation is a vicious chess match of their insecurities trying to checkmate yours, and Pete watches everyone he talks to go through a mental database of How He Might Possibly Help My Career. Pete knows exactly what they’re doing because when he was up-and-coming, he did the same thing: showed up at parties to meet the right people, flirt in the right direction, do more than flirt if it was needed, get the endorphin recall the next time his name came up in conversation: _Oh, yes, Pete Wentz, he was fantastic, right? Let’s call him in to read for the role._ Once Pete hit the top, he stopped having to do that and started watching people do it to him. At first it fascinated him, transfixed the strategic promotional part of his brain, how people chose to approach him and tried to disarm him. And then it just got so bleakly predictable that he found himself standing in the middle of parties where every person wanted to speak to him and wanting to scream from the top of his lungs, _Does anyone actually see me standing here?_

He’s supposed to go to parties still to suck up to Oscar committees, like, that would make Shane _very_ happy, but he’s grown bad at self-promotion, lazy, listless. His heart’s not in it. When he goes to parties these days, he tries to find somewhere to hide.

This party… This party is a fucking _dream_. Most people recognize him, although some people seem to think it’s too far-fetched for Pete Wentz to be at this party. These, Pete assumes, must be people who haven’t linked his new boyfriend with Verity’s new stepbrother. Later, they’ll connect the dots and be like, _Oh, my God, that_ was _Pete Wentz at that party_. The people who do recognize him, though, they…don’t really want anything from him. They wouldn’t even know what to ask him for. Maybe a selfie or an autograph but even if Verity hadn’t gotten word around not to bother him for that stuff, most of these people are too self-consciously full of themselves to fawn over a movie star. He’s no big deal. They’re going to play it cool and pretend they hang with Pete Wentz types all the time.

Pete hasn’t been treated this deliciously unremarkably in a very long time. He asks people what they do and none of them – not a single one – works in movies. They work in finance, and marketing, and law. One of them says she does “synergistic enterprising conscious collusion.” Pete has no idea what that is and he asks her to explain it to him and still has no idea what it is after the ten-minute explanation. When she wanders away from them he looks at Patrick and says, “What…?” and Patrick just shakes his head.

“No,” Pete says, laughing. “Like, what do other people _do_? And I always thought _I_ had a fake job. What do consultants do? Have you understood what any of the consultants we’ve met are doing?”

“No,” says Patrick, and he looks amused, too. “And I’ve been wondering why you keep asking people what they do. You genuinely have no idea about careers, do you?’

“Oh, fuck you, like you do? You run a record store, Evanston, that’s not a _career_.”

“You’re very insulting, you know it? You’re an insulting person.”

“It’s a good record store,” Pete says earnestly.

“I’ve made, like, two sales to people who aren’t you,” Patrick admits, and Pete starts laughing again. He can’t stop. He collapses against Patrick’s shoulder, presses his face into Patrick’s neck and snorts laughter. He’s never done this before at any party, laughed like this so whole-heartedly, had someone nearby to just…just…melt into like this, he’s never done this before but he wants to do it again and again and again, over and over, how does he make this be his life? If he had to live the same hour over and over again, he’d want it to be this one. Every fourth or fifth time through he’d pull Patrick into a bathroom for a blowjob, like, it’d be totally doable.

“You’re having fun,” Verity says, coming over to them, and Pete pulls himself up from Patrick, away from his yearning musings. “Good. See, Patrick? We’re fun people, hmm? Patrick doesn’t think we’re very fun,” Verity tells Pete.

“Patrick hangs out with movie stars,” Pete deadpans, “he’s got high standards.”

Verity’s lips twitch with a smile.

Patrick says, “I don’t hang out with movie stars.”

“Ohhhh, Patrick,” says Pete gently, “I have news to break to you.”

“Yeah, we’ve already been through that reveal,” Patrick retorts, but he’s smiling as he does it and he doesn’t resist the hand Pete slips into his back pocket, so it’s all good. He continues, “I mean, _as a general rule_ , I don’t hang out with movie stars and I think you’re totally fun.”

“Oh, good,” says Verity pleasantly, “you can come round to tea more often, then.”

“Yes,” Patrick says. “Sure. You know what? We’re out of champagne. I just realized. We need more champagne.” Patrick darts toward the bar, glances back at Pete as if he expects Pete to follow.

Pete shakes his head a little. “I want to ask Verity about consulting.”

Patrick’s brow furrows in confusion, a cute little furrow, but he leaves Pete alone with Verity.

“Consulting?” Verity echoes.

“What is it?” Pete asks.

“Oh, no one has any bloody clue, it’s make-believe,” Verity replies.

Pete laughs. And then he says, “Listen, go easy on Patrick, okay?”

Verity tips her head quizzically. “Do you think we don’t?”

“No, but this is a complicated situation for him, it’s…complex. I know I just said the same thing twice, I’m just…” Pete hesitates. He doesn’t want to betray Patrick’s confidence, he just wants Verity to know that Patrick is so sweet and so kind and all that snark is just a front and she needs to be _so_ careful with him because he’s the most important human on the planet. How to say all of _that_? This is why Pete needs scripts. He settles finally on, “A lot’s been thrown at him here.”

“A lot’s been thrown at all of us,” Verity points out mildly.

Pete says, “No offense, but the guy that died lived on the same continent as you, so I think it might be a little different for you, don’t you?”

Verity, after a moment, says, “Yeah. Of course. You’re right.”

“Just…be nice to him.”

“We are!” Verity protests. “He just doesn’t think we are because he’s American. That’s how you Americans are.”

“Well, that’s just an unhelpful stereotype,” says Pete.

“Oh, is it?” Verity raises an eyebrow at him. “You see, it’s completely transparent that you’re mad about him, because you’re American and you wear your heart on your sleeve.”

“Not all Americans wear their hearts on their sleeves,” Pete protests. “Also I’m an actor.”

Verity just looks at him.

Pete sighs. “Also I’m completely mad about him.”

“Good,” says Verity. “I hope _you’re_ being nice to him, then.”

“I’m trying,” says Pete, chagrined. “I’m trying to be excellent to him.” Pete glances across at Patrick at the bar and thinks, _I’ve never had a real relationship before, so I’m not sure if I’m doing it right_ , which is the single most pathetic thing he could possibly say here, he thinks. _I’m a world-famous movie star who fucks everything up_ , he thinks, _tell me how to avoid that here_. Christ, he is really such a goddamn loser.

He’s saved from all the pathetic things he could possibly say by Verity suddenly exclaiming, “Oh, no! Paget’s cornered him! I must save him!” and scurrying off to where Patrick has indeed been cornered by a man.

Patrick looks miserable, and then relieved by Verity’s appearance. He looks past Verity to Pete and immediately heads toward him, fastening a hand around his bicep when he gets to him.

“Where’s our champagne?” Pete asks.

“We have to go,” Patrick replies.

“Why?” Pete’s amused. “Has the Mafia just discovered your whereabouts and you have to go into hiding?”

Patrick gives him a look. “What? No. But Paget’s very keen to talk to you about _Hollywood_ and the _craft of acting_. He thinks maybe he could be an actor. He wanted to know if you would rehearse a few things with him.”

“Oh, God,” says Pete, with a sinking feeling of dread. It had been _so nice_ forgetting about being _useful_ to people, something people wanted, always, for something other than just who he was. “I mean, if he’s a friend of yours, I could, as a favor to you—”

“No,” Patrick says firmly, steering them out of the party. He shakes his head and pauses at the door to look at Pete. “That is not what you do for me, ever. No favors.”

“Oh, darn,” Pete says to distract himself from how much that makes him want to fucking cry with joy, “and I was going to do you the favor of blowing you later.”

Patrick snorts and flicks Pete’s hoodie up over his head. “You’re not doing anything except going to sleep.”

“Nah,” Pete says, around a traitorous yawn at the suggestion, “I’m not wasting time _sleeping_.”

He follows Patrick out the door, where Patrick draws up, frowning, and then turns to twitch Pete’s hoodie farther down over his head. Pete assumes this means there are paparazzi, and he appreciates Patrick’s solicitousness. Pete really doesn’t feel like dealing. Pete’s surrounded by people who are supposed to make his life easier but Patrick feels like the only person he’s ever met who’s actually managed to achieve that. Pete is full of affection for him, but also annoyed that he feels so comfortable that he actually _does_ feel sleepy.

“You know,” Patrick snipes at someone, and for a second Pete thinks he’s addressing the paparazzi and is about to tell him not to talk to them, but then he continues, “I think the paparazzi always know where we are because you’re like a fucking beacon.”

Andy’s voice says, “It’s not my job to leave him unattended.”

Another voice—Pete assumes this is Heidi—says, “And it’s not my job to leave _you_ unattended.”

Pete peeks out from the hem of his hoodie. “Thank you, Heidi, you’re excellent at your job.”

“Shh,” Patrick says to him, and then, “How long have you had this car idling here?”

“Do we have to fight about it?” Andy asks. “He’s Pete Wentz, you can’t stick him in a random Uber, just get in the car.”

Patrick gets in the car and pulls Pete in after him. It’s warm, which is nice, because there had been a cold drizzle falling outside. Patrick leans over to close the door after Pete and then says, “Pete, how do you talk to the driver?”

“Hmm?” asks Pete. He really is very tired. Maybe he could catnap for a second. It’s shocking how tired he is now that he’s not being forced to stay upright for the party.

“Stay awake for a second longer and tell me how to talk to the driver. Do you want to go back to the Goring or my place?”

Pete opens his eyes enough to press the button to slide the barrier down between them and the driver. “Whatever, as long as you’re there,” he says, and nestles up against Patrick’s side.

Patrick, after a moment, says to the driver, “We’re going to go to my place, not the Goring.”

The driver says, “I’m supposed to—”

“Listen to him,” Pete commands sleepily, and then turns his face into Patrick’s neck. “I really want you,” he says muzzily.

“Uh-huh.” Patrick’s voice sounds dry but Pete’s pretty sure he brushes a kiss over his temple, where the hood has fallen away. “You’d fall asleep on my dick right now.”

“No, I mean, I want you just like this,” says Pete. “Just like this.” He sighs happily, eyes closed, snug against Patrick’s side, fitting him perfectly.

“Oh,” says Patrick. “Well. You’ve got me.”

“I love your devil costume,” Pete mumbles. “Can you wear it for me later when I’m awake?”

“Sure,” Patrick says.

His voice sounds warmer than anything else in the world. Pete could heat his entire house through a Chicago winter off Patrick’s voice. He wants to tell him that, but he falls asleep instead.


	36. Chapter 36

Pete is sound asleep, his head on Patrick’s lap, by the time they get to Patrick’s apartment.

“We’re here, sir,” the driver says, and Patrick can see that, but he’s loath to disturb Pete. He strokes his hand through Pete’s hair, frizzing at the edges the way Pete’s hair gets at the end of the day. Pete’s hood has fallen back and his lips are parted and his breaths are easy and Patrick thinks of how Pete like this always looks the most like _his_ Pete, the one who slept in his bed that very first night and made Patrick think of the _future_.

Patrick had not imagined the future would look like this but he’s thinking that, well, he’ll take it. Like, there’s a lot that’s a mess about all of this, especially the fact that Patrick can see paparazzi outside the car and that’s just his _life_ now apparently, but Patrick will take all of it, it’s all worth it for these moments.

Andy opens the car door and looks down at Pete and says, in obvious shock, “He’s _sleeping_?”

“As you can see,” Patrick replies, and then, “Shh,” because Andy could have been a little quieter.

“It’s just…” says Andy, obediently whispering. “He never sleeps. Not without…” Andy trails off.

Patrick thinks of the tiny army of prescription pill bottles he’d encountered in Pete’s bathroom at the Goring. He’d filed that away as less important to talk about than Pete’s awful agent, who he was eager to avoid at all costs and who he assumed would be more likely to show up at the Goring, hence Patrick taking them anywhere but the Goring.

Patrick says simply, “Well, he’s sleeping now.”

“Good,” says Andy, “I can take him back to—”

“He’s coming inside with me.”

Andy pauses. “Yeah, but—”

“He’s coming inside with me.”

“He’s got, like, three hours to—”

“He’s coming inside with me,” Patrick says again. He’s going to say it until Andy gets the point.

Andy gets the point. He backs off with a sigh of resignation. “Fine.”

“How many paparazzi?” Patrick asks.

“Look, a thing you should know,” says Andy. “There’s _always_ paparazzi. It doesn’t matter how many. We’ll make sure they stay away from you as much as we can but if there’s one paparazzi that’s the same as there being a hundred paparazzi because all it takes is one picture, you know?”

Patrick gets what Andy’s saying but at the same time he does feel like it makes a difference to him to know how many cameras are going to go off in his face. “Fine,” he says, and shifts to get his keys out. Pete mumbles something but doesn’t wake. “This opens the building.” He hands the key over to Andy. “Hold the door for me and I’ll get him in.”

Andy looks skeptical. He says to Heidi, “He’s insisting on spending the night here.”

“That’s fine,” Patrick hears Heidi reply, “I can keep the building secure.”

“I like Heidi more than I like you,” Patrick tells Andy.

Andy makes a face at him and then disappears.

Patrick shakes Pete, nudging to try to get him upright.

“Mmm,” Pete mumbles. “Ten more minutes.”

“A lot more minutes,” Patrick promises him. “Let’s just get you inside.” He pulls Pete’s hoodie back over his head.

Pete yawns enormously and rubs at his eyes, looking very young and very sweet and Patrick’s heart does that thing where it tries to kill him by ceasing to beat. Patrick clambers over him to get out of the car and Pete is docile, following behind him and into the building, up the stairs, into Patrick’s apartment, yawning the whole way.

He perks up in the apartment. “This place,” he says, looking around the room fondly. “I’ve missed this place.” He picks up the guitar Patrick left on the couch the last time he played. “Oh, look, you can play me something,” he says brightly.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Patrick tells him. “Andy says you’ve got, like, three hours until you’re on set, or whatever the right vocabulary is there.”

“I’m used to not sleeping,” Pete says, “play me something.”

Patrick considers, then decides, “I will play you something if you get into bed.”

Pete rolls his eyes but says, “Okay, fine,” and unzips his hoodie and then pulls his t-shirt up over his head like that’s not going to completely short-circuit Patrick’s brain. But Pete undresses without artifice, toeing his sneakers off and then wriggling out of his tiny jeans, and there he is, all skin and tattoos, and he crawls into Patrick’s bed and pops his head out from the covers like some kind of sex moppet, Patrick’s clearly losing his mind, what is he even thinking right now.

Pete says, “Okay. Play me something.”

Patrick thinks about it, and then starts playing the song he’s been working on lately. He thinks of this as Pete’s song, thought he doesn’t want to say that now. But he didn’t start working on it until he met Pete, and he thinks of Pete whenever he works on it, of everything he can’t say in words that he has to put into music instead.

Pete listens with keen attention, and Patrick thinks he should have played a lullaby instead. Then Pete says, “That’s so pretty, does it have words?”

“Not really,” Patrick says, and then, because Pete looks disappointed, “Kind of like…” Patrick looks down at the guitar, takes a deep breath, leads his way in, “I’ve made up my mind, I’m out of my mind, over you,” he sings. He steals a glance up at Pete. Pete looks transfixed. Patrick doesn’t really have words for this song, just snatches of phrases here and there, so he leads himself into another one. “I just can’t believe I love someone like you,” Patrick sings, and to his amazement Pete’s eyes start drooping. Patrick’s fingers on his guitar find his way to another phrase. “You’re the only kind of love I want, and you break me in two.” Pete’s eyes are fully closed now. Patrick thinks he might be sleeping, but he finishes with, “I want to spend tomorrow with you.” Pete doesn’t stir when he stops singing, so he’s definitely asleep.

Patrick looks at him for a moment, then he looks at the time. It’s still early, and Patrick’s ordinarily a night owl who goes to sleep as late as possible but he takes off his devil ears and annoying devil’s tail and gets into bed next to Pete.


	37. Chapter 37

The knock on the door wakes him. He opens his eyes to find that he’s curled in close to Patrick, on his side while Patrick’s on his back, their legs tangled together, his head tucked under Patrick’s arm, his hands loosely caught up in Patrick’s red satin shirt. He closes his eyes again and makes a little humming noise, because he’s filled with too much contentment to stay silent, and inches closer, pressing his nose into Patrick’s warmth.

There’s another knock on the door.

“Yeah, he’s coming!” Patrick calls.

“Mmm, you sound very awake,” Pete mumbles, and bites at Patrick’s shirt lazily.

“I am awake. It’s not late enough for me to sleep yet. Pete, your sleep schedule is fucked.”

“All my life, why fix it now?” Pete says, and wriggles on top of Patrick. He’s so warm and so soft and so _hot_. Pete sees no reason not to tell him that. “You’re so hot, you know it?”

“You’re still half-asleep,” Patrick replies.

“You’re waking me up with your hotness,” Pete says, and shifts to mouth at Patrick’s nipple through his shirt.

“Yeah, you’ve got to—” Patrick’s voice is breathless and his hand curls helplessly into Pete’s hair, and Pete smiles and closes his teeth for a little tug. Patrick’s whole body jerks in reaction and he gasps, “Oh, fuck, you’ve got to go.”

“Give me a sec,” Pete mumbles, and pulls Patrick’s shirt up out of his way.

“Like—” Pete sucks on the other nipple and Patrick’s hand clenches in Pete’s hair. “Jesus, _Pete_.”

There’s another knock on the door.

“We really need to go!” Andy calls through it.

“Tell him to give me a couple of minutes,” Pete murmurs, and dips his tongue into Patrick’s navel.

“You’ve got to—” Pete is busy getting Patrick out of his pants. There’s another knock on the door just as Pete swallows him down. Patrick arches up and shouts toward the door, “Yeah, he needs— _oh_ , he needs a couple of minutes.” Patrick sounds thoroughly wrecked and Pete thinks it serves Andy right, that he’ll definitely give them the couple of minutes now.

“Quick now,” Pete pulls off to whisper, “Andy’s waiting.” Patrick groans and Pete gets to work and Patrick makes satisfying little gasps and moans and _Pete_ s and comes quickly enough that Andy doesn’t knock again before the climax. Pete, satisfied, gives Patrick’s softening cock an affectionate kiss, and then makes his way up his body. Patrick is boneless with bliss, sunk back into the pillows, and Pete thinks that he looks like he’s changed his mind about it being late enough for sleep.

“That was a thank you,” Pete whispers, and kisses his chin.

“For what?” Patrick mumbles, looking at him blearily.

“Patrick, for _everything_. Always for everything.” Pete rubs his thumb over Patrick’s gorgeous pout.

Patrick lets his eyes slip closed and says, “Give me a second and I’ll reciprocate.”

“No,” Pete says, “thank you, but I’ve got to go.”

On cue, Andy starts rapping steadily on the door, shouting, “No, for real, though!”

“Yeah,” Pete calls back, sliding off Patrick. “Coming now.”

Patrick opens his eyes again and frowns at him. “ _Not_ coming now.”

Pete smiles. “I’ll call you from my trailer and we can do phone sex.”

Patrick wrinkles his nose. “I don’t do phone sex. I sound like an idiot when I do dirty talk.”

“I bet you don’t,” says Pete.

“Oh, Pete, touch your cock for me now, there’s a good boy,” says Patrick flatly. “See? I sound like an idiot.”

Pete stares at him and tries to will his dick to get out of the mood. “That’s…not what you sounded like,” he says, strangled.

Patrick peers at him. “Really?” he muses. He sounds intrigued.

“Oh, wow,” Pete says breathlessly, “this bodes so well for the really spectacular phone sex we’re going to have.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “I don’t know. I’m not convinced.”

“Pete!” Andy calls.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pete answers distractedly, and then leans forward to brush Patrick’s sweaty hair off his forehead and kiss it. He leaves his mouth resting there for a second and says, “Patrick…” and then stops. He can’t say it like this. _I’m leaving in a week. I forgot to tell you_. What the fuck. Not now when he’s running out the door like this. He’s the fucking worst. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“Yeah?” Patrick prompts.

“Nothing,” Pete says. He turns away to pull his t-shirt over his head. “It’s nothing. We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah, that’s a good plan,” Patrick says after a second, as Pete pulls his jeans on. “Please don’t work yourself to death on this set, I was just starting to grow fond of you.”

Pete laughs and snags Patrick’s abandoned devil ears and sticks them on his head. “See you later, Evanston.” He winks at him.

“Bye, Wilmette,” Patrick says as Pete steps out the door, and honestly, it sounds almost like it could be an _I love you_. 

Pete’s smiling. He can’t help it. He looks at Andy and says, “Hey.”

“You were easier to deal with when your quickies took place in your trailer,” says Andy sourly. “We’re going to be very late.”

“What the fuck is the fucking point of being Pete Wentz if I can’t show up late every once in a while?” Pete asks lightly. “Good morning, Heidi. Take good care of Patrick and know that exasperation is how he shows his love.”

“It is nowhere near morning,” Heidi says, sounding amused.

“Yup,” Pete agrees, and waves a hand negligently. He feels like the best sort of high, the way Patrick-contact makes him feel. He loves this feeling, he hopes it never goes away, Patrick’s the best drug in the entire universe.

“What the hell are you wearing on your head?” Andy asks, looking at the devil horns.

“If I’m going to show up sex-disheveled all over the internet, I want it to be a fucking spectacular picture,” Pete says, and walks out into the world.


	38. Chapter 38

Patrick wakes up smiling.

And the thing is, Patrick knew he was fucked, like, he’s known it for a while now. But he wakes up _smiling_ , and it’s so clear, so crystal clear, how very fucked he is.

There are a million texts from Pete on his phone. Patrick can barely understand some of them, because they’re in some kind of movie-set shorthand that he’s not familiar with. Their tone is complaining, though, and there are lots of emojis that help him get the emotional gist. Many others are the world’s most random gifs, like, Patrick genuinely cannot understand how Pete finds the gifs that he sends to him, what are his search terms? There’s also a series of selfies, and while Pete looks predictably hot in them, they’re pretty awful selfies, cropped weirdly, or fuzzily out of focus, or he’s making a terrible face. Patrick shakes his head at how he got himself involved in this mess, like, _how_ , and then he picks three words at random to search for a gif to send back. _Window guitar horse_ , is what he chooses, and he sends Pete the sparkly unicorn gif he gets as a result. Then he adds as a text, _Have you ever in your life taken an actual good selfie?_ Then he yawns and looks at the time. On target for an on-time opening of his poor beleaguered record store. He wonders vaguely how many paparazzi will pretend to be customers today, as he heads for a shower.

When he gets out of the shower, there’s a text from Pete that’s an honest-to-God spectacular selfie, smoldering at the camera, his eyes dark and sinful, his lips in an obscene pout. “Fuck,” Patrick says out loud. He supposes he literally asked for that. _Show-off_ , he texts, and definitely saves that photo for later.

He slides his phone into his pocket and grabs a granola bar to suffice as breakfast, stepping out the door.

Heidi is at her post.

“Do you ever sleep?” he asks her seriously.

“I slept a bit last night,” she says.

“ _Where_?” asks Patrick, glancing at the hard floor around his door. “This is ridiculous. Pete’s got to hire somebody else to help you out.” And then he realizes what he’s just said and wonders when he decided to accept Pete’s ridiculous theory that he needs security.

He mulls that over as he opens the shop, sticking his head out the door and announcing, “Everyone who comes in must buy at least one record, that’s the rule.” There are a few people milling about, all of whom shrug, unimpressed. Possibly not all of them know who he is, and when did he start expecting people to know who he is?

“Do you two do a lot of devil roleplay?” one of the people demands, and Patrick isn’t sure if that person knows who he is or not, like, that could just be a random religious fanatic. “Because nothing will send you to Hell faster than devil roleplay.”

Patrick closes the door and looks at Heidi. “I was under the impression that once it was gay sex, I might as well go all out.”

Heidi’s lips twitch in amusement.

Patrick pulls his phone out and texts Pete, _Why am I getting questions about devil roleplay?_ He’s in the process of Googling that when Vicky comes downstairs and walks immediately over to him and shoves him.

“What the hell,” Patrick protests, and looks at Heidi. “Aren’t you supposed to _protect_ me?”

Heidi shrugs.

Vicky says, “You took him to the party with you!” and thrusts her phone in his face.

_Oh_ , thinks Patrick. _Right_. Devil roleplay. How had he managed to forget the photos of them in front of the record store, horns and tail in place? “Yeah,” Patrick says, zooming in on the photo so he can see how the costume looked. Honestly, he didn’t look bad. “He showed up and wanted to go.”

“This means,” Vicky says, yanking her phone back, “that _Verity_ got to meet Pete Wentz your boyfriend before I did! _Verity_!”

“That was not intentional,” Patrick defends himself.

“Am I not your best friend in London!” Vicky demands.

“Yes—”

“When one’s best friend begins dating _the hottest bloke in the universe_ , it seems like one should at least get to have dinner at some point with said hottest bloke. Does it not seem that way? Heidi? Would you not agree?”

“Heidi’s not going to take your side, she works for me,” Patrick says.

Heidi looks like she’d take Vicky’s side.

“Help me out, Heidi,” says Vicky. “How hot is Pete Wentz?”

“He’s pretty hot,” says Heidi.

Vicky points to Heidi like that just proved some kind of point.

“Google him,” Patrick says. “His photo’s all over the internet. You can easily get your fill of Pete Wentz.”

“I just think I should get to have dinner with him! And make sure he’s good to you! How do I know he’s good to you! I mean, other than the fact that all you do is go around humming Disney love songs.”

“What?” says Patrick, feeling himself turning scarlet. “No, I don’t.”

“The other day, I swear to fucking God, Patrick, you were singing ‘A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes,’ and honestly I was impressed you knew that song.”

“That is not true,” Patrick protests awkwardly, because, well, he _does_ know that song. “That is a lie.”

The record store door opens and closes, and Joe walks through it.

“Yo,” he says. “Do you think we’re going to have actual customers today? Because I’m a bit hungover with Halloween festivities. And you must be _very_ tired after all the devil roleplay, eh?”

“It wasn’t devil roleplay,” Patrick says. How is this his life?

“Your boy is fucking hot, nobody blames you,” says Joe, with a shrug.

“ _I_ blame me,” Patrick says. His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out. Pete has unhelpfully sent him devil horn and tail emojis. Another text comes in: _I sent you a picture, you should send me one. Pick a part of your anatomy that starts with a ‘d.’_

Patrick takes a picture of his extended middle finger and sends it to Pete with the message, _This is one of my digits._

Pete sends back a sad-face emoji.

Patrick sends a gif of a frog turning a somersault and then looks up to find Vicky and Joe both staring at him.

“What?” he says self-consciously.

Vicky sighs. “People in love are bloody annoying,” she says.

“Vicky’s jealous, you’re cute,” Joe assures him.

Patrick shakes his head a little because it’s been A Morning already and says, “Look, Pete seems to be working a lot right now but the next time I get to talk to him, I’ll see if he can have dinner with all of us, how’s that? But the rule is you cannot, under any circumstance, treat him like a movie star. He hates that.”

“He’s not a movie star,” Joe says. “Not really. He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he? That’s what makes him relevant to us.”

And Patrick loves him for that.

The record store door opens, and Patrick says, “Everyone who comes in has to buy something,” as he turns to face the intruder.

Then he drops his phone to the floor and stammers out, “Mom.”


	39. Chapter 39

Pete’s late to set but he doesn’t fucking care. He doesn’t fucking care about anything at the moment, let’s be honest. He cares about Patrick. He’s tragically distracted. He’s trying to focus, he really is, but he’s thinking about how he’s only got a few days left in London and what’s going to happen after that.

“What happens when we finish up here?” he asks Andy, because Pete never has any idea what his own schedule is.

“We go back to California for the rest of the filming.”

“Okay. How long is that going to last?”

Andy looks at him closely. “A month.”

A month. That’s doable. That’s not very long. He’ll miss Patrick terribly, of course, but he can make a month work, and then he can come back here and—

“And then you go to New Zealand for _Folie a Deux_ ,” says Andy.

Pete blinks. “I go where?”

“ _Folie a Deux_. Remember? It’s filming in New Zealand.”

“When?”

“A week after this one wraps.”

“A week,” Pete echoes flatly. “Whose idea was that?”

Andy gives him a look. “Yours. You didn’t want a break. You specifically agreed to _Folie_ because of the timing.”

Pete remembers that now. Pete remembers the dread he felt at not being busy. With nothing to do but think, he was too liable to tumble into depression, to sit anxiously in a quiet room and ponder everything he’d ever done wrong in his life and how many people he’d hurt along the way, and then there was just the pills promising a few moments of oblivion, like, Pete really had specifically told Andy he wanted to pick a movie that wouldn’t give him a break.

“Fuck,” he says, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Past me was a fucking idiot.”

“It was probably difficult to anticipate you were going to fall in love with a random record store owner you met after sneaking out of your London hotel suite,” Andy deadpans.

“You can say that again,” Pete sighs. “Can I get out of _Folie_?”

“I’m not your lawyer,” Andy points out.

“Right. Call Gabe.”

“No need to call Gabe,” says Shane from behind him, “when your agent is here.”

Pete tenses immediately and then looks over his shoulder, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

“Just seeing how things are going, Petey.” Shane claps him on the back. Pete frowns harder. “So. How are things going? Good Halloween?” Shane flashes a smile at him that’s all teeth. He’s definitely seen the pictures, Pete thinks.

“How long ‘til I’m needed back on set?” Pete asks Andy.

“About twenty minutes,” Andy tells him.

“Let’s go have a nice chat in my trailer,” Pete tells Shane. “Really catch up.”

“Oh, how delightful,” Shane says, as he follows Pete into the trailer. And then, once they’re in there, he says, “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” and shows Pete his phone. It’s a photo of a disheveled-looking Pete leaving Patrick’s, devil horns on.

“I mean,” Pete says, “I think it’s a pretty good photo of me.”

“That’s not the point, Pete,” Shane snaps.

Pete is reading the caption of the photo. “Actor Pete Wentz leaves the flat of good friend Patrick Stump on his way to set. Good friend Patrick Stump. Seriously? Do I have to suck his dick in public?”

Shane takes the phone away. “Don’t worry, Pete, people have _definitely_ grasped that you’re sucking his dick a lot. Which is why I’m asking you what you’re doing.”

“Nothing,” Pete says. “I’m acting in this movie. Or trying to.”

“You’re jeopardizing _everything_. Do you not remember how hard I worked to get you where you are today? Do you have no understanding of how quickly this can all go away?”

“I have always been out—” Pete starts.

“You have always been _bi_. And that was fine, that was manageable, that was, like, getting us diversity points.”

“What?” says Pete. “That’s not what being bi is—”

“But now you need to stop, you’ve gone too far, this reads as gay.”

“No,” Pete says, “I’m still bi, I’m just in a relationship with a man. That hasn’t changed anything—”

“You can’t be in a relationship with a man. You can only be bi _in the abstract._ You’re Pete Wentz. Do you not remember? You’re _Pete fucking Wentz_ , and I’ve spent the past fifteen years tricking people into fucking liking you, do you think that was easy? Look at the work I’ve done for you, look at everything I covered up to keep you America’s sweetheart, all of the disastrous mess of you, and you’d throw it all away for this…this… _nobody_? He’s not even hot, Pete. Like, have you looked at pictures of the two of you together? It’s _laughable_.”

Pete can’t say anything because Pete feels dizzy, there’s too much in all of this for him to unpack, he’s furious and also devastated and full of self-loathing over every reaction he’s having that’s useless and also the fact that Shane’s right, he _is_ a disastrous mess, hasn’t he been thinking it this whole time, like, Shane’s _right_ , not about how Patrick doesn’t deserve him but how _he_ doesn’t deserve _Patrick_ , like, who is he kidding, why would Patrick ever entertain the possibility of being with him past this London week—

And then Shane spits out, “And he won’t fucking leave, so you have to take care of this.”

Pete’s maelstrom of destructive thoughts screeches to an abrupt halt. He stares at Shane. “What?” he says.

“He won’t _leave_.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep trying to offer him money and he’s such a fucking prick, all holier-than-thou about not having a price, like—”

“When did you offer him money?” asks Pete.

“I always offer them money, Pete. I offered him a million bucks the morning I met him and he ripped up the fucking check like an _asshole_. And then I offered him more the other day—”

“What other day?”

“The day you left him in your hotel room like a trusting motherfucking idiot, Pete, he could have done _anything_ in that room. Do you ever think _at all_?”

Pete ignores all of that. Pete ordinarily would get caught up in that, his brain is sticky that way, it always focuses on the bad things, like, it’s true, Pete’s bad at _thinking_ , he’s reckless and stupid that way, but for once his brain leaves the self-disgust by the wayside, because _Patrick_. “What did you offer him?”

“Honestly, I told him to make _me_ an offer.” Shane is so visibly furious.

“And he didn’t,” Pete concludes breathlessly.

“Which is why you’ve got to get rid of him,” Shane says.

Oh, Pete is never fucking getting rid of Patrick, he thinks. Pete’s keeping him until the end of time. Patrick, Patrick, who just wants _him_ , and Shane’s right about everything about Pete, he’s a terrible, humiliating, annoying mess and Patrick refuses to leave him, Patrick wants _him_.

Pete flies out of the trailer, stumbles down the steps, almost colliding with Bebe, who says, “I was just coming to find you. Butch is making them find new flowers to plant in the window boxes so we’ve got like an hour off, did you want to grab coffee or something?”

“Sorry,” Pete gasps, “got to go.”


	40. Chapter 40

Patrick’s mother looks unimpressed by his apartment, and Patrick is really regretting the fact that he didn’t make the bed before going down to the record store, like, every time he looks at the rumpled sheets he thinks of how Pete blew him there a few hours ago, it’s not good, he’s not happy.

His mother is also not happy. She sits gingerly on the couch like it might be dirty and Patrick wants to reassure her that they’ve never actually fucked on the couch except then he remembers that he may have jerked off there to a couple of very particular Pete Wentz scenes and so, never mind, she’s right to be ginger.

Patrick is practically crashing through his kitchen looking for coffee. His mother is saying nothing. She merely said, _Hello. How are you, Rick? We’ve got a lot to talk about_ , and then he ushered her upstairs.

“Coffee,” he says, relieved as he finds it and gets the coffeemaker on. “Coming up.” He turns to his mother, who’s looking at the guitar he left propped against the arm of the couch after playing for Pete the night before. He snags the guitar and puts it on its stand and says, “So when did you get in?”

“Just now. I came immediately here.”

“Oh, you must be tired then,” Patrick says. “Did you want to rest?” Patrick looks at his bed. “Not here. I mean. Somewhere else.”

“It’s okay,” his mother says. “I don’t really want to sleep in the bed where the devil roleplay took place last night.”

Patrick winces. “There wasn’t any devil roleplay. You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

She fixes him with a look. “Are you dating Pete Wentz?”

“Kind of,” Patrick hedges.

“There’s a thing called _Peterick_ ,” she says, and thrusts her phone at him.

It’s the Peterick hashtag on Twitter. The very first result is a tweet with a picture of Pete leaving the record store. He looks absolutely like he just gave a blowjob, and he’s got Patrick’s devil horns nestled in his thicket of mussed dark hair. Patrick gets why everyone thinks devil roleplay went on last night. Pete is so very hot in this photo that Patrick has one of those out-of-body moments where he can’t believe the person who looked like _that_ had just left his bed.

Patrick hands the phone back to his mother and tries to think what to say. He settles for, “I didn’t know you had a Twitter.”

“ _Patrick_ ,” his mother snaps. “Do you know how embarrassing this is? Everyone at home wants to ask me all sorts of questions about this and you won’t even return my calls!”

“Yeah, you know, it’s kind of been a lot and Evanston gossip at the local Trader Joe’s isn’t that high on my list to deal with,” Patrick replies. He knows it’s a mistake as soon as he says it, and his mother stares at him furiously, but he can’t take it back and he doesn’t really want to. The last year of his relationship with his mother has been Patrick in a series of utter crises and his mother making them all about her. Frankly, Patrick had enough of that six months ago when he decided to move to London. He says, “You know what, I think the coffee’s done,” and gets up to make them some.

“I’m surprised you even have coffee here,” his mother says bitterly. “You haven’t gone native? You’re not going to offer me tea?”

Patrick hands her a cup of coffee and says, “Hi, Mom. London’s going well, thanks for asking. I met a guy and I like him a lot. We’re still in the very early stages of the relationship but I don’t know, maybe it can be something. I’m hopeful. He’s kind of complicated.”

His mother scowls at him. “Don’t even pretend that you would have given me any of those life updates when you haven’t returned a call in weeks.”

“Because you don’t want life updates from me. You want to criticize me for making terrible life decisions.”

“But I’m _right_ ,” she says. “You’re making a fool of yourself with this Pete Wentz nonsense, you’re the laughingstock of the entire planet. He’s the most eligible bachelor in the world and you’re acting like you seriously think he’d choose _you_.”

The thing is, Patrick knew his mother would say something like this, this is why he never returned any of her calls, but there’s just no way to brace himself for things like this, like, he’s tried, really hard, not to let it hurt him, but it hurt him every single time his mother told him he was wasting his time with his music and needed to get a real job because he wasn’t that good, and it hurts now. He can’t help it.

“You know,” he says coldly, “that’s the opposite of how you’re supposed to think. Aren’t you supposed to think I’m the most incredible human to ever walk the Earth? I’m your _son_.”

His mother scoffs. “What good would that do you? I’m trying to save you from the heartache. I’m always trying to save you from the heartache.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Patrick says wryly. “Your confidence really makes all the difference.”

“Would you listen to what I’m saying to you?” his mother snaps.

“I’m not—” There’s a knock on the door, which surprises Patrick, because, well, Heidi and Vicky and Joe all know he’s holed up here with his mother, so who could it possibly be to get past the security? He’s walking over to it when it flies open and Pete rushes through. “Pete,” Patrick says in surprise. This is a complication he wasn’t expecting.

“Shane came to see you,” Pete pants.

“What? Yes, but, Pete, listen—”

“I was having such a bad day,” Pete says, “ _such_ a bad day, and then Shane said—he said—he couldn’t make you leave—you didn’t leave—Patrick, that’s—that’s—” Pete is talking in gasps between frantic kisses, trying to pull Patrick’s t-shirt up.

Patrick is trying to pull his t-shirt back down and trying to mostly dodge Pete’s kisses and trying to generally extricate himself from Pete’s embrace. “Hey,” he says, “Pete—”

And then his mother says coldly, “Oh, good, this makes things easier, as I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

Pete freezes. Pete peeks over Patrick’s shoulder.

Patrick’s mother says, “Hello. I’m Patrick’s mother.”

Pete blinks and looks at Patrick.

Patrick says weakly, “My mom is here.”

Pete looks back at Patrick’s mother and says, “Oh, wow, so cool.”


	41. Chapter 41

Pete has never been introduced to the parent of a person he’s fucking.

He’s not enjoying it.

Patrick’s mother keeps glaring at him. He hasn’t even been given a name to call her. Is _Mrs. Stump_ even right? Probably not, they were divorced, at best it would be _Ms. Stump_ and Pete’s not even sure the _Stump_ part is right, really, Pete is, like, dying here.

Patrick’s making him coffee and the room is starkly silent except for the sounds of the coffee-making and Pete tries to think of how to make small talk, he’s never had to make small talk, from the age of nineteen onward everyone just fawned over him and laughed at everything he said and thought he was charming no matter how sullen he got.

He looks at his watch, trying to estimate when he was supposed to be back on set, he didn’t exactly pay attention when he fled.

“Do you have somewhere else you need to be?” Patrick’s mother asks him coldly.

“Um,” says Pete.

“He’s shooting a movie, Mom,” Patrick says, putting coffee in front of Pete. Patrick’s eyes are pleading with him some sort of apology.

Pete’s caught in the fact that the coffee is made the way he likes it. Patrick was clearly paying as avid attention as Pete was to the coffee-making at the Hard Rock Cafe. It makes Pete look at Patrick and wink. And he looks at Patrick’s mother and pretends he’s being interviewed, answering heartily, “The director’s planting new flowers. He’s a perfectionist. An _auteur_ , if you will. Have you seen _Left of Self-Centered_?”

Patrick’s mother narrows her eyes at him.

Pete falters. “I guess not.”

“I have, actually,” says Patrick.

Pete blinks at him in surprise. “You have? I thought you didn’t watch movies.”

“I didn’t watch _your_ movies,” Patrick replies. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t watch _any_ movies.”

Pete laughs. “Oh, I see, mine didn’t make the cut,” he says playfully, and looks at Patrick’s mother. “Your son’s _so_ charming, how can I resist him?”

His mother doesn’t seem to think this exchange is indication that they’re meant for each other. “What exactly are your intentions?” she demands.

Pete hesitates and looks at Patrick. “Um. You mean, like…marriage?” He has no idea how else to take the question.

“You’ve had your fun, you’ve gotten your headlines, how are you going to end it? Did it not occur to you that he’s a human being and not just useful tabloid fodder? I suppose it _wouldn’t_ occur to someone like you.”

Pete tips his head quizzically. “I wasn’t planning on ending it.”

Patrick’s mother barks unamused laughter.

Pete looks at Patrick, who looks genuinely miserable.

Pete says to Patrick’s mother, “Look, I know I come across like an asshole but I’m sincere in saying that I don’t have ulterior motives, I just like your son.”

“No one believes that,” Patrick’s mother says harshly.

“Okay, but, like, hopefully Patrick does. Hopefully _you_ do.”

“Look at him,” Patrick’s mother says. “Look at this.” She waves a hand scornfully around Patrick’s apartment. “You expect me to believe that this is what you find irresistible?”

Pete realizes he’s gaping and closes his mouth. “Yeah,” he says, “I do. I mean, Patrick is _incredible_. Patrick is the nicest person I’ve ever met, and the sweetest, and the funniest—”

Patrick’s mother snorts. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”

“Not nearly thick enough,” Pete retorts. He’s probably not supposed to talk that way to his boyfriend’s mother but whatever, on one side he’s got Shane trying to bribe Patrick to leave and on the other he’s got Patrick’s mom thinking he’s playing him, or something. “My ‘intentions’ are that I’m very serious about your son. He is the best, most pleasant surprise I’ve ever had in my life, he’s kind and he’s thoughtful and he’s nice to me, and hopefully he thinks pretty good things about me, too, because I am never letting go of him as long as he never lets go of me.” Pete looks at Patrick, who looks a little stunned, and says meaningfully, “There is no price at which I would give him up.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Patrick blinks and opens his mouth but he says nothing. He just stares at Pete. 

There’s another knock, and then Patrick’s mother says, “I suppose _I_ will answer the door then,” and gets up huffily.

That sems to shake Patrick out of it. He says dazedly, “Oh, right, yes, the door,” but before he can stand his mother is already opening it. 

Andy enters, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, Pete, you’ve got to be back on set.”

Yeah, and it’s been a long day already, and it’s cold and wet, and Pete doesn’t want to keep the crew out longer than he has to. He swears in his head and looks back at Patrick. “I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. Everyone’s waiting on me and I can’t…”

“Yeah,” Patrick says faintly. “Yeah, of course.”

Pete says, “I don’t know when my next break’s going to be but I’m going to call you and you should take my call.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says again.

Pete looks back at Patrick’s mom. “I’m sorry that I didn’t make a great first impression but I promise, I think your son’s fantastic, I’m not going to break his heart.”

“Yeah,” she replies sardonically, “because the flashy, creative types are _so_ reliable.”

***

Patrick’s mother lectures him on not getting involved with creative people, because they’ll inevitably break your heart, and Patrick gets that apparently she’s _still_ hung up on whatever his musician father did to her but Patrick’s really kind of tired of the fact that she’s never been willing to see _him_ as a creative person and also Patrick can’t understand how she doesn’t run out of energy, Patrick’s exhausted and he’s not jetlagged, his mother is running on reserves of bitterness that will apparently never run out.

And on top of that, Patrick’s mother is insisting on giving him this lecture after Pete made that incredible speech about him, that… Patrick doesn’t know how to take that speech, like, he knows Pete likes him but he kind of gets why his mother’s dubious, like, how can he, Patrick Stump, really be the person who’s _nice_ to Pete Wentz? How can that be his depressingly low _bar_?

Vicky comes up to save Patrick from the lecture eventually with some invented emergency at the record store.

“Mate,” she hisses to him by the cash register, looking over his shoulder in case his mother sneaks up on them, “she’s sapping you of life like a vampire, you’ve got to get out of here.”

“Where would I go?”

“The Goring,” Vicky says incredulously. “Your boyfriend’s got a suite at the Goring.”

Patrick shakes his head. “I can’t just go crash in Pete’s suite.”

“Why not?” Vicky demands. “Do you really think he’d be upset about that? Wait for him in nothing but the devil horns, he’ll love it.”

Patrick does really want Pete. He wants to feel worthwhile, the way Pete makes him feel and his mother doesn’t. The truth is the way Pete looks at him makes him feel not just worthwhile but _extraordinary_. He could really use a dose of extraordinary.

He puts his head on the desk next to the cash register and mumbles, “I keep telling myself she’s not right.” 

“Huh?”

“I mean, I get why she’s dubious. He could literally have anybody on the planet he wanted. There are like eight billion people on the planet. Something like that. Out of _eight billion people_ , Pete Wentz really looked out into the masses and chose me? Really? I get why she doesn’t think it’s possible.”

“He’s got to pick someone,” says Vicky. “Why not you?”

“I don’t know,” says Patrick wearily, and closes his eyes.

Vicky startles him by digging into the pocket of his jeans.

“What the hell,” he says, squirming away, “don’t _molest_ me.”

“I just want your phone,” says Vicky, and swipes it open. And then she taps something and puts it up to her ear, walking away from him.

Patrick straightens, alarmed. “What are you doing?”

“Calling Pete Wentz. He’s your most recent contact. Hi, Pete,” she says into the phone brightly. “This is Patrick’s friend Vicky. So sorry we haven’t really got a chance to properly meet yet, but I’m hoping you could help me out. Patrick’s had a rough day and he could really use his boyfriend.” After a moment, Vicky says, “Ta very much,” and ends the call. “He’s sending a car for you.”

“ _Vicky_ ,” Patrick protests. “My mom is upstairs.”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of her.”

“ _How_? She is not easy to take care of. She is very demanding. And she can’t sleep in my bed, it’s…” Patrick wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah, I know, devil roleplay.”

Patrick winces. “There wasn’t any devil roleplay.”

“Uh-huh. Your boyfriend says your mom’s got a night at the Goring waiting for her, on him, but he’s sending a separate car for you. Patrick, he sounds nice. He sounds like he really cares about you. He sounds like he _chooses you_. Do you know what he said when I said you could really use him? He said, ‘Me, too.’ _Patrick_.”

Okay, that was a good line, Patrick’s got to agree. He closes his eyes again. He thinks of Pete, so open and earnest, saying _I’m never letting go of him_. 

When Pete’s car comes for him, he gets in. His mother can deal. 

The car doesn’t take him to the Goring. It takes him, Patrick deduces, to a movie set. Andy is waiting for him with a little visitor’s badge he clips onto his t-shirt.

“They’re filming a scene,” Andy says, “but they’re on, like, the twentieth take, they should be almost done.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Patrick says, feeling awkward. Everyone rushing around him seems a hundred times more glamorous than he is.

“Pete’s been freaking out about you and your mom, knowing you were on your way here has finally made him able to focus on the scene. Also, Shane left.”

“Shane was here?” Patrick says, and then realizes that makes sense, Pete had burst into the apartment babbling about Shane. And then talking about not giving him up for any price.

“He was, but he’s gone now. He is not happy about _you_ ,” Andy remarks.

“Yeah, we’re not buddies,” Patrick drawls.

“For what it’s worth,” Andy says. He starts walking and Patrick follows him because he doesn’t know what the hell else he’s supposed to be doing. “You don’t bother me.”

“Wow,” says Patrick, “stop, you’re going to make me blush.”

“I mean.” Andy stops walking and looks at him. “We’re not enemies. It’s just that I’m on _Pete’s_ side. And not a lot of people are.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Patrick remarks. “And _for what it’s worth_. You could have done a much better job of being on his side.”

“Because I don’t suck his dick?”

“Because you don’t—” Patrick suddenly cuts himself off. What good would it do to say, _Because you never seemed to notice how desperately unhappy he is?_ Maybe Andy did notice and had no idea how to fix that. Maybe fixing that’s something, astonishingly, that only Patrick can do.

Andy doesn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. Maybe he thinks it is all about the sex, after all. He just says, “They’re filming right around that corner. You can go watch if you’re quiet.”

Patrick nods. He’s curious. He’s never seen a movie being filmed before, and he really wants to see Pete act.

He creeps his way around the corner. The light is failing but the section of street in front of him is lit up like bright daylight. There’s a cluster of people around a clear area of the sidewalk containing Pete and Bebe Rexha. Patrick recognizes Bebe Rexha. Everyone watched _Expectations_ years ago, Patrick remembers his mom glued to the television screen every week when he was a kid.

Pete’s saying something. Patrick can’t hear it from where he is but he chooses a vantage point where he can see the projection of what one of the cameras is filming, so he can at least watch Pete’s face. His expressions are quicksilver, smiles flitting across his lips and then fading just as quickly, his golden eyes a swirl of confusion. Patrick doesn’t know what the scene is but he feels like, from the way Pete’s acting it, it’s light on the top and tense underneath. Pete’s compelling. Patrick feels like he can’t look away. The phrase _the camera loves him_ meant nothing to Patrick until he started watching Pete’s back catalog. Now he gets it: The camera really does love Pete. Something about him captivates it. Pete on-camera is different than he is off-camera, and Patrick prefers the off-camera version but he gets why Pete’s a big movie star. When someone shouts, “Cut!” Patrick jumps, startled, because he’d been so caught up in watching Pete’s face act, he could have watched it forever.

Someone strides over to Pete and Bebe in the circle. The camera moves, taking away Patrick’s view of what’s going on. People bustle all around him, busy with jobs he doesn’t understand. Patrick feels foolish and self-conscious. He’s not entirely sure why he’s here. He should go find Andy and ask if he can wait for Pete at the hotel. He does not belong on this movie set.

Of course, Andy is nowhere to be seen, and Patrick is craning his neck trying to look for him and cursing his height (or lack thereof) when someone says, “Oh, hey, Pete’s boyfriend.”

Patrick braces, unsure what’s about to happen, and looks over his shoulder.

It’s Bebe Rexha. Bebe Rexha is talking to him.

Like, Patrick knows he’s kind of dating Pete Wentz, and that Pete Wentz is currently a much bigger deal than Bebe Rexha, but, like, he _grew up_ watching Bebe Rexha.

“Hi,” Patrick says weakly.

Bebe smiles at him and holds out her hand. “Patrick, right? I’m Bebe.”

“Yeah, I know,” Patrick says nonsensically, shaking her hand. He’s probably supposed to be cool about this but he knows he’s blushing. “We watched your show, like, every week. My mom had a huge crush on the guy who played your dad. Was he nice? I hope he was nice.” Why is he babbling about this?

At least Bebe looks amused by him. “He’s nice. I get asked that a lot.”

“Sorry,” says Patrick, “I should have asked about you. How are _you_?”

Pete saves him by swooping in and saying, “Patrick,” and then to Bebe, “Are you bothering him? He’s blushing. Don’t make him blush.”

“He’s a _fan_ ,” says Bebe.

Pete looks at Patrick. “You’re a _fan_? Are you seriously a fan of everyone in Hollywood except me?”

“I mean,” says Patrick, “it’s just that my mom used to watch _Expectations_.”

“Go easy on him, Wentz,” says Bebe, “everyone watched _Expectations_.”

“Yeah, I thought everybody saw _Infinity on High_ , too,” mutters Pete. And then, “Hang on, your mom’s a Bebe fan? Let’s get Bebe to sign stuff for her and then maybe your mom will like me.”

That seems farfetched, although Bebe shrugs and says, “Sure. Whatever. Happy to do it.”

“No,” Patrick says, “I don’t want to bother people, I just want to…” Patrick looks helplessly at Pete. He’s very tired and he’s stuck in this surreal conversation now.

“Yeah, we’ve got a break now,” Pete says. “A couple of hours. We can go back to the hotel.”

“It was nice to meet you, Patrick,” Bebe says.

“Yeah,” Patrick manages. “Same.”

“Don’t even think about stealing him,” Pete tells her.

“No, I want to know if he’s got any friends. I like cute redheads, too.”

Patrick’s too dazed to say anything in response.

Pete, leading him away, says, “Actually, you should set her up with your friend Vicky. They’d both get a kick out of that. Although _Expectations_ wasn’t that big over here, Vicky might not even know who she is.”

“I don’t know, I think that’s the best way to meet a movie star,” says Patrick. He can’t imagine trying to flirt with Pete if he had known who he was. He could barely be coherent with Bebe and he wasn’t even _really_ a fan, he was just flustered by the reality of the person who used to live in his television.

“Yeah, I can recommend it.” Pete bumps his shoulder against his, flirty and playful.

“It’s not you she doesn’t like,” Patrick says. 

“Huh?” says Pete.

“My mom. I’m sure she likes you just fine. She doesn’t like _me_.”

There’s a beat of silence. Pete says, “Patrick, that’s not true. She’s your mom. She loves you.”

“Can we just _go_ somewhere?” Patrick asks. He’s so, so tired and there are so many _people_ , how does Pete _do_ this all the time?

“Yeah,” Pete says, after another moment of silence. “Let’s go.”


	42. Chapter 42

Patrick is silent and introspective on the way to the Goring, and Pete leaves him to it. He wants to ask if it’s okay that he got his mom a suite but Patrick’s clearly got a complicated relationship with his mother and Pete doesn’t want to add to that right now. He watches Patrick in the back of the car and wishes he knew what to do. He wants to text his own mom. _Help! Nice boy needs me to be a good boyfriend and I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend!_

They get to the Goring, and Pete stands awkwardly in the middle of the living area.

So does Patrick.

Pete says, “You can sit down.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and sits in the nearest chair.

Pete says, “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat?”

Patrick shakes his head.

Pete considers. “Do you want me to wash your hair?”

Patrick looks at him. “Do I want you to what?”

“I don’t know.” Pete fidgets. Now he realizes how stupid that sounded. “In _From Under the Cork Tree_ , there’s this scene where the heroine has a bad day so I wash her hair.”

Patrick stares at him.

“I mean,” Pete says, to fill the silence, “I can barely wash my _own_ hair, so I don’t know if I’d do that good a job washing yours, but—”

“Pete,” says Patrick, and reaches for his hand and pulls him over and leans his forehead against Pete’s sternum.

Pete presses a kiss onto the top of his head. “I’m sorry you had a bad day.”

“I don’t know,” Patrick mumbles. “There was a pretty spectacular speech in the middle of all the rest of it.”

Pete cards his fingers through Patrick’s hair, hoping it’s soothing. “Do you want to talk about ‘all the rest of it’?” he asks uncertainly. He doesn’t think he’ll be any help but he _wants_ to be.

“You took me to hear live music,” Patrick says.

It feels like a non sequitur. Pete says, “Yes. You love music.”

“I do. I _love_ music.” Patrick sighs. “So did my dad. And my dad wasn’t… We didn’t… Music was like meth in my house, like, I had to hide it, sneak out to shows, bury a secondhand guitar under the bed. I didn’t lock myself in the bathroom to jerk off, I did it to _sing_. I’d put the shower on and I’d sing so, so softly, so she wouldn’t hear. My dad was a musician. He was also, to my mother, the worst human being who had ever existed. I couldn’t also be a musician, because that would mean…”

Pete takes a deep breath. He tries to think of either of his parents trying to talk him out of who he _was_ , the way he battered his wings against the cage around him for the entirety of his childhood until he got free. Sure, his dad hadn’t thought very much of his plan, tried to talk him out of it, but in the end his dad had shown up to everything Pete could ever have wished. Pete had never hid who he was. Maybe that was his personality type, or maybe that was because he’d known deep down his parents would love him no matter what, no matter the arguments over it. Maybe Patrick’s mom had never made him feel that way.

Pete says, “You know that’s not true, right? Like, I don’t know, your father probably wasn’t the worst human being, but even if he was, being a musician doesn’t turn you into him.”

“I know. _I_ know. I came all the way to London to know these things. But I hadn’t written a single song here until the night you walked into the record store.”

“Patrick,” Pete says softly, because he really doesn’t know _what_ to say to that.

“What I’m saying is…” Patrick takes a deep breath. “I know you had a long day, too—”

“Patrick. Not at _all_.”

“—but actually, that hair-washing thing sounds kind of nice.”

Pete chuckles and kisses Patrick’s head again.

***

Patrick wakes up alone in the Goring, the way he usually does. He wistfully imagines a day when he gets to wake up to Pete. It’ll be nice.

He has to take a shower and rewash his hair, because sleeping on it wet has left it disastrous. The whole hair-washing episode sounded absurd when Pete said it but ended up being really lovely. It’s been a long time since Patrick let someone take care of him, he has to admit. A _really_ long time. Patrick isn’t sure he’s ever gotten to the point where he truly trusted someone enough to just _do_ that. When they got out of the shower, they curled into bed, and Patrick put his nose in Pete’s hair and smelled the fresh, clean scent of him, fell asleep drowning in it.

Patrick shakes himself out of the memory and looks at the army of medications in Pete’s bathroom, lined up on the counter. He hasn’t snooped enough to know what they are, just that there’s a lot of them. They should talk about that, eventually. There’s a lot they should eventually talk about, when they’re in the same place for more than an hour or so. He really can’t wait for this movie to end. He texts his mom to be a good son. _Want to go sight-seeing?_ Like, that’s a thing he should do, right?

When he steps outside the suite, Heidi’s waiting for him.

“Pete’s working, right?” Patrick says to her. He’s pretty sure Pete wouldn’t abandon him, he’s just double-checking.

“Yeah, Andy gave me his schedule so I’d know,” Heidi says helpfully.

“Acting is a fucking nightmare job,” Patrick remarks, and tries not to sound too morose. “I can’t wait for this movie to be over. Don’t tell Pete I said that.”

“Well, you’ve only got a few more days,” Heidi says.

Patrick, who had been trying to find a gif ridiculous enough to text to Pete, freezes. He looks up. He says, “What?”

“They wrap up filming here in a few more days. Then they go back to L.A.”

Patrick stares at Heidi. Patrick stares and stares at Heidi. His brain thinks, _They go back to L.A._ And then, _Pete goes back to L.A….?_ And then…he doesn’t think anymore, it’s a blank, it’s like the Earth is flat and he just reached the end of it.

“Oh, no,” says Heidi, looking horrified, “Pete didn’t tell you. Don’t, like, don’t say anything. Maybe you weren’t supposed to know—”

“I wasn’t supposed to _know_?” says Patrick. He likes to think he doesn’t screech it, but, well, it’s probably a screech. He thought he was, like, _dating_ this guy. He thought Pete had just seriously proclaimed that he would never leave him, not for any price. Patrick has been… Patrick has been… _so serious_. Patrick has trusted with Pete with _everything_. And it turns out that Patrick isn’t supposed to know that in a few days Pete is leaving the entire _continent_? Patrick is such a fucking idiot. “Oh, well,” says Patrick icily, “in that case, yeah, you’re right, I’ll absolutely pretend I still don’t know and let Pete tell me on his own time.” _Probably when he’s packing up to leave_ , thinks Patrick. _Fucking hell, Mom_ is _right_. All the pretty words meant nothing, Pete was always planning on leaving, Pete knew the fucking _date_ , and he was never going to say anything.

Patrick puts his phone in his pocket and doesn’t text Pete at all.


	43. Chapter 43

There aren’t any texts from Patrick but he’s dealing with his complicated mom situation, so Pete gets that. On a filming break, he sprawls on the couch in his trailer and texts Patrick a gif of a cat squeezing into a box, because he thinks that might be comforting, and then he opens Twitter because he’s bored. He’s got a DM. Who could that be from? Pete’s got a ton of “friends” on Twitter, none of which are actually friends.

He sighs and opens the DM. It’s from a rock star he friended a while ago, when they happened to both be drunk at the same Grammy party. They haven’t spoken since then.

_HEY, WENTZ – Long time no talk!!! This is on behalf of my manager, who says your boy’s Twitter is on lockdown right now. His music is TEN OUT OF TEN. That is a DIRECT QUOTE. My manager would love to chat with him about repping him. She’s cool, your boy would be in good hands, hmu_

Pete frowns at the DM, thoughtful. He still hasn’t listened to any of Patrick’s music, although it’s all over the internet. He wanted to wait until Patrick played it for him first. But now he’s bored and Patrick’s not texting him and what the hell, it’s all out there on the internet and apparently TEN OUT OF TEN.

Pete listens.

Pete _falls in fucking love_.

Pete was in love already, but, seriously, what the _fuck_.

Pete almost falls down the stairs of his trailer, and Andy says, “Whoa, careful—”

“Have you listened to Patrick’s music?” Pete demands.

“What? Yeah. Of course.”

“It’s _incredible_.”

“Yeah. You didn’t…?” Andy looks confused. “I assumed you’d listened to it.”

“Not until just now. Oh, my God. What is he doing? What is he _doing_? How did no one know who he was until I came along? He should have people banging down his door!”

“Well, I mean, they did,” says Andy.

“Huh?” says Pete.

“Not before you came along, but after, when people uncovered his music, like, his Twitter is full of offers.”

Pete draws his eyebrows together. For once in his life, he’s grateful Andy is such a thorough spy. “His Twitter is full of offers? Offers of what?”

“Representation. People are going crazy over his songs. You didn’t notice? You didn’t _talk_ about this?”

Obviously not, and Pete feels like a fucking fool. Why wouldn’t Patrick have mentioned any of this to Pete? He’d been trusting Patrick to talk about it when he was ready. Instead, Patrick had always downplayed his music. Patrick had never talked about any of _this_ : the music industry knocking down his door because of how unbelievably spectacular his music is.

“I’ve got to go see Patrick,” says Pete.

“You can’t. I was just coming to get you to tell you they’re almost ready for you.”

“Fuck. When’s my next break?”

“You need to _sleep_ on your next break.”

“How am I supposed to sleep when Patrick’s got music like _this_ out in the universe and we’ve never even talked about it?” Pete brandishes his phone.

“It’s existed all this time,” Andy replies drily, “it’s not an emergency.”

“It’s an emergency,” Pete says. He texts Patrick swiftly. _Have a million more hours of work to do apparently but then we really need to talk_. And then, after he sends it, he thinks it sounds harsh, so he texts a few dozen heart emojis as well.

***

Patrick spends the day listening to his mother tell him, in a million different ways, how it’s never going to last with Pete and he’s got to have a _plan_ and it doesn’t seem to her like he has any sort of _plan_ , he’s just listlessly drifting through life, the record store is definitely not something he’s taking seriously, he’s just hoping to be Pete Wentz’s kept man and that is _highly_ unlikely.

Yeah. Patrick’s inclined to agree.

Patrick has a text from Pete that he keeps opening and staring at and then closing and then reopening. _We really need to talk_. And this is clearly when Pete’s going to tell him that he’s leaving London, and this was fun, and maybe they can have Skype-sex every once in a while.

Patrick doesn’t know why he’s so startled by this. He knew Pete didn’t live in London. He knew this was all an interlude. When did he start thinking that this could be…like… _something_? His mother’s right, that he has no life plan. He loves the record store but it doesn’t turn a profit and if the building hadn’t come free he’d never be surviving right now. A rich, powerful movie star gave the appearance of falling for him and okay, maybe Patrick had a moment of thinking, like, he could delay worrying about what came next, he could just press the pause button on the panic, he could stop agonizing, he could stop trying to be a responsible grown-up, he could just…kiss Pete Wentz a lot. That had been his entire thought process: kiss Pete Wentz a lot. His mother’s right, this is an unhealthy fantasy and he needs to grow up and he needs to get a _real job_. Even though he has zero life skills and is thoroughly unqualified for anything.

Patrick Stump is the biggest, most disastrous mess and the only reason Pete hasn’t seemed to entirely realize this yet is because somehow Pete is an even more disastrous mess. And that’s saying something. That is really saying something.

Patrick goes back to the Goring. If he doesn’t, Pete’s going to track him down at the record store, and Patrick doesn’t want to have this conversation there. It’s bad enough how many memories are now wrapped up in that building. Patrick doesn’t want this one, too.

So he drops his mother off at her room and she says something disapproving and judgey that he doesn’t pay attention to because it just joins the sea of disapproving and judgey thoughts sloshing through his brain, and then he goes up to Pete’s suite.

In the elevator on the way, he says to Heidi, “Pete’s schedule. When’s his next break?”

“He should actually be here within the hour, and then I think he’s not needed again until tomorrow.”

Which is hardly relevant to Patrick. There is no tomorrow. Not a tomorrow with Pete.

He sits in the luxuriously appointed suite and worries at a hangnail on his thumb and stares unseeingly at London out the window. He’s so far away from home, and it slams into him at that moment, how badly he wants Chicago. Maybe he should have never left Chicago.

Pete walks in, an extravagant bundle of energy. “Patrick!” he exclaims, bouncing over to the couch. “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick!”

The enthusiasm catches Patrick off-guard. Pete texted they had to talk, Patrick assumed this was going to be a solemn conversation. About Pete _leaving_. “What?” Patrick says intelligently.

“ _Patrick_ ,” says Pete, and flops to the floor by Patrick’s feet. “When were you going to _tell_ me?”

“Tell you?” Patrick has no idea what Pete is talking about. He thought _Pete_ had something to tell _him_. He stares at him. He was hasty with removing his makeup from the day’s filming, eyeliner is smeared around his eyes, blending with the dark circles he has perpetually from never really sleeping, and his hair is literally sticking up on one side, and Patrick can’t imagine why it would have been styled that way. Even with all this, he’s that level of unearthly, impossibly beautiful that he always is, and Patrick wonders if eventually he would have been able to look at Pete without feeling that pang you get when something ethereal crosses your path. “Tell you what?”

“About all the _offers_.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patrick says. He’s so confused, this is not at all what he thought this conversation was going to be about.

“The _record label offers_ ,” Pete clarifies.

Patrick stills. “Hang on. What?”

“Patrick, people have been falling all over themselves trying to sign you.” Pete brushes his fingers over Patrick’s ankle. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Pete.” Patrick is irritated. He shifts his leg away from Pete’s touch. “Those aren’t serious.”

Pete, looking puzzled, sits back and cocks his head. “What do you mean they’re not serious?”

“They’re not serious. They’re people who suddenly care now that I’m fucking _you_.”

Pete shakes his head a little. “No, they’re not.”

“Stop it,” Patrick snaps. He’s been on-edge all day, but this seems like the final insult to him, that Pete wouldn’t grasp how much more important _he_ is, how he completely overshadows Patrick in everyone else’s understanding of their relationship. “Do you know how many fucking people I sent demos to?” He stands up, restless, and starts pacing. “ _These same people_. None of them wanted me until I started fucking you.”

Pete sits on the floor and looks up at Patrick. “Okay, but… Two things, I guess. I’m kind of, like…” He picks himself up. “I listened to your songs, Patrick. They’re _astonishingly_ good. These people are not faking it. They probably just didn’t listen before. Nobody listens to nobodies.”

He says it so nonchalantly. It infuriates Patrick. “Oh, gee, lucky me that you decided you wanted me to suck your dick, or I’d still be a _nobody_ , laboring in obscurity.”

“Okay, that’s the second thing,” Pete retorts. “What’s up with that?”

“Up with what?”

“Your sudden characterization that what’s going on here—” Pete waves his hand between the two of them—“is ‘fucking.’”

“What would you call it?” demands Patrick sarcastically. “Going steady?”

“Christ, I don’t know what the fucking _term_ is, I’m just, like, nobody’s paying attention to you because I’m _fucking_ you, Patrick, I fuck a lot of people, no offense.”

“Yeah, no offense,” drawls Patrick.

Pete glares at him. “People are paying attention to you because—”

“I cannot wait to hear what fucking Facebook status update you’re going to call us when you’re leaving in three days and you _still_ are not telling me this.”

Pete goes silent, mouth open and shutting on nothing.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Patrick demands.

“Who told you I’m leaving?” Pete asks.

“Not you,” Patrick replies shortly.

“No. Right. I know. I was trying to tell you. Like, trying to find a way to tell you.”

“We speak the same language,” Patrick points out, unmoved, “and that language has words you could have used to tell me that you’re leaving. Not even very long ones. You probably could have just stuck to words of one syllable and gotten your point across.”

“No, but, like, I didn’t want to—I wanted to have a _solution_ before I said I was leaving.”

“A solution?”

“I have to leave, I’m committed, I have to go back to L.A. to finish this up, and that’s just going to be a month, but then I committed to this other movie and it’s filming in New Zealand—”

“New Zealand?” Patrick echoes. He cannot believe how stupid he was that he had somehow never fully considered that _Pete was going to leave_.

“Come with me,” Pete says quickly.

“What?”

“Come with me. Come to L.A., come to New Zealand, always come.”

“And do what?” asks Patrick flatly.

“Huh?”

“What would I _do_? In L.A. and New Zealand? Besides wait around your suite for a quickie when it suited your schedule?”

Pete makes a frustrated noise. “Okay, you make it sound like—”

“What would it be, Pete? What would I do? I mean, I get it, you’re spectacularly successful, in demand all over the world, and I’m a loser who nobody gives a damn about, whose life is so nonexistent that I can just pack up and follow you around and never be anybody to anyone but Pete Wentz’s fuckbuddy.”

“That is not what I’m saying,” Pete bites out. “Not at _all_. You are an extraordinary person. That’s what I started out telling you, isn’t it? Your music is incredible. You should be the fucking star in this relationship, not me. If you let me, I would make you a fucking _star_. You should stop whatever you’re doing here – this running, this hiding, whatever it is – and you should come with me and you should give the world your music.”

“I’m not hiding,” Patrick denies defensively.

Pete snorts. “Okay.”

“Hey—” Patrick starts sharply, but Pete cuts him off.

“Oh, stop it, you are _definitely_ hiding, don’t be holier-than-thou about all this. You make the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard and you never even played it for _me_. I think you’re scared to be successful.”

Patrick flinches. “I’m not—”

“Here you are on the precipice of everything you could ever want, and you won’t pull the trigger. You’re _scared_.”

“Maybe I am,” Patrick snaps. “Maybe I am scared. Because let me tell you, you don’t make any of this look like _fun_. In your empty suite with your army of prescription pills, pretending that any of those people out there love you, when you know that they don’t.”

Pete blinks and takes a step back, his scowl fading. “That’s… That’s…”

“Not true?” The look in Pete’s eyes makes him think that he should stop this, he should stop it now, he’s going to push them both, and the lost temper shouting in the back of his head interjects, _What the fuck does it matter? He’s leaving anyway_. “You’re the saddest person I’ve ever met. Let me ask you something: Why is Shane your agent?”

“Huh?” says Pete, like this is a complete non sequitur he can’t follow.

“Why is Shane your agent?” Patrick repeats through gritted teeth.

“He’s a… He’s a good agent. He made me a star. I showed up in L.A. with no one knowing my name, and a year later he’d landed me a Netflix series—”

“ _You_ did that. Can you really not fucking see that _you_ did that? Who’s hiding now? You’re talented, and clever, and charming, and you don’t need an agent like Shane. He knows that so much that he’s literally trying to buy any happiness you might get away from you, because if you get happy, you might wake the fuck up. You live like you don’t have a tomorrow, like it doesn’t matter what happens, it’s good enough that you got through today. No tomorrow, no reason to tell me what might happen then, I’ll just wake up all alone, right? No tomorrow, no reason to think past this movie, this script. No tomorrow, no reason to deal with Shane. No tomorrow, so you can line up the army of pills and just make sure you get through this one day. If I’m scared, Pete, then it’s with good reason, because nobody would want to end up as sad and desperately lonely as _you_.”

“At least I took a risk,” Pete seethes at him. “At least once in my fucking life I took a risk and grabbed for something. You’ve never done that. You’ve got people lining up to offer you the world, and look at you, standing here in front of me, pushing it away with both hands. And in what universe – in what _fucking universe_ , Patrick Stump – do you get to fucking lecture me about being _sad_ and _alone_?”

They stare at each other, and in all the time Patrick’s known Pete, he’s never seemed so far away. Patrick is conscious of the gulf of success between them, a gulf they’re never going to bridge, never be able to ignore. Patrick will always be the no-name in Pete’s shadow, and he’ll always wonder if he could ever have been anything more. Pete will always wonder the same thing, he sees at that moment: if Patrick would ever stop being so fucking timid and start living on that reckless edge Pete has inhabited his entire life.

Patrick turns and walks out of the suite without another word. He lets that be the last thing he will hear from Pete Wentz. It will be easier that way, with that in his head, echoing, whenever he thinks of Pete.

“Don’t worry,” he says to Heidi in the hallway. “I don’t need security anymore. I’m going back to obscurity.”


	44. Chapter 44

Pete takes to his bed. A common enough coping mechanism in Pete Wentz World that Andy doesn’t even blink when he finds him there, huddled under the blanket. He flips the lights on, brutally pulls open the curtains, and Pete winces. Everything hurts. Being alive fucking _hurts_.

He hears Andy in the bathroom, and he knows that Andy is systematically gathering up the pill bottles. It is better that Pete not attempt to self-medicate in a mood like this. It is an old agreement between them. It makes total sense. But Pete couldn’t even get up the energy to find a pill to take, to be honest. Andy’s taking a precaution that is unnecessary, like guarding against the moon falling out of the sky.

“Come on,” Andy says. “You’ve got to go.”

“I can’t,” Pete says. He _can’t_. He wishes Andy would understand that he just physically _can’t_ get out of this bed.

“Yes, you can.” Andy squats by the bed and peers at him. “What happened?”

“You’re going to say ‘I told you so,’” Pete says.

“What did I tell you?”

“That Patrick was a bad idea.”

“What happened?”

_Nothing could drive Patrick away, no amount of money, except for me being me_ , Pete thinks. _He wouldn’t leave for a million dollars, he left for free because he finally realized I’m the worst_ , Pete thinks. _Do you think I’m sad and lonely? I do feel very sad and lonely. What the fuck am I doing with my life?_ Pete thinks. 

He’s startled when Andy says, “What are you doing with your life?”

Pete looks up at him. “Huh?”

“I’ve never seen you, ever, as happy as you were with Patrick. I didn’t recognize you at all. And I’ve known you a long time now. It made me think…what are you doing with your life? Does this even make you happy? I thought it did, you know. Maybe you thought it did, too. But it doesn’t. Does it?”

“No,” Pete says in a small voice. It’s so, so obvious when Andy says it this way. Maybe it should have been obvious to him all along. He thought he was looking for one thing but it turned out he was looking for something else entirely, and he didn’t know until met Patrick.

“No. I didn’t think so. You’ve got to finish making this movie, I think. And then once that’s done, you can maybe have a talk with Shane about needing a break. Getting out of _Folie_.” Andy sounds so calm, so reasonable.

“Shane will be furious,” Pete notes.

“Who gives a fuck?” asks Andy mildly. “It’s _your_ life.”

It’s his life. It’s _Pete’s_ life. And Patrick said that Shane was holding Pete back from it. And here Pete is, wanting to do something and worrying Shane will be furious. Shane, holding him back…

Pete sits up. Pete looks around the room. Pete takes a deep breath. Pete says, “I think I fucked it up with Patrick.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Andy replies, pulling out clothes for Pete to wear.

“No, I definitely did. I… I didn’t tell him that I was leaving, and then I think I… I said really terrible things to him. He’s never going to forgive me.”

“Pete.” Andy hands him a shirt and holds his gaze. “Patrick’s absolutely crazy about you.”

“I don’t know,” Pete says wistfully. “He _was_.”

Andy looks at him for a second. “Get dressed. Go to work. I bet Patrick calls you before the day is out.”

***

Patrick doesn’t talk to anyone for twenty-four whole hours. He ignores his mother, and Vicky and Joe, and Verity, and everyone. He doesn’t have to ignore Pete, because Pete doesn’t call. He’s happy Pete doesn’t call, of course. He doesn’t want Pete to call. Pete is leaving. What’s the point of Pete calling?

On the twenty-fifth hour, Vicky wears him down knocking on his door, and he lets her in. It’s an exhausting thing to do. When he’s done opening the door, he collapses back onto the couch.

“What the bloody hell happened?” Vicky demands. “Does this have something to do with your mother?”

“Have you talked to my mother?” asks Patrick. He wonders what his mother is doing in London. He can’t deal with the prospect of her gloating.

“Well, yes, she came by the shop looking for you. To be honest, I hadn’t realized you’d come back here from the Goring. What _happened_?”

“Nothing,” Patrick says. “I don’t know.”

“This doesn’t look like nothing,” Vicky points out incredulously.

“It was always going to happen,” says Patrick. “It was inevitable.”

“What was?”

“That we were going to break up. Vicky, he’s a big deal Hollywood star. And I’m a nobody. I don’t fit in his life. And he doesn’t fit in mine. It was always going to end up like this. It’s better that it happened now than…than…” Patrick waves his hand around. He doesn’t actually know when this would be _worse_. It feels like the worst it could possibly be right now.

“Oh, Patrick,” Vicky says, full of soft pity, and Patrick _hates_ that. This is why Patrick hates relationships, because he always ends up the object of soft pity at the end of them, it’s fucking _awful_.

“Don’t do that,” Patrick says. “Don’t feel bad for me. I’m fine.”

Vicky looks like she feels bad for him.

Patrick seriously hates everything about this. “Look, I got to fuck a hot movie star and how many people get to say that, right? Like, this is fine. This is a win-win.”

“I don’t get it.” Vicky sounds honestly perplexed, like it’s shocking Patrick didn’t end up happily ever after with the big deal movie star. “What happened? He broke up with you? What did he say?”

_He said that I’m scared, and hiding, and sad, and alone, and he’s not wrong_. Patrick doesn’t say that. Patrick hasn’t been saying that for twenty-five hours now. He’s just been thinking it really hard. He says, “He’s leaving. In, like, two days. Or tomorrow. What day is it? I don’t know. I lost track of time. The point is, he’s leaving, and he was never going to tell me. You know how I found out? My fucking security guard slipped up. I was never supposed to know.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Vicky says. “It doesn’t sound like Pete—”

“You don’t even fucking know Pete,” Patrick snaps, and Vicky, looking surprised, takes a step back. “Sorry,” he says immediately. “I’m sorry.” He pinches at the bridge of his nose and wishes he could just go back in time and never meet Pete fucking Wentz. “But I mean, did any of us _really_ know Pete?”

“He seemed to fancy you so much,” Vicky says. “Like, _so_ much. I’m sure he wasn’t just going to disappear without a word. What did he say when you asked him about it?”

_That I’m scared, and hiding, and sad, and alone_ , thinks Patrick. “That I should go with him.”

“Why didn’t you?” asks Vicky.

Patrick looks at her in disbelief. “Vicky. I can’t just pick everything up and move to L.A. Or wherever. New Zealand. I don’t know. He’s all over the place.”

“I don’t see why not,” says Vicky frankly. “You showed up here out of the blue. It’s not like you really have ties here. Joe and I practically run the shop ourselves, let’s be honest. You’re a terrible businessman, Patrick. It’s not where your head is at.”

Patrick stares at her, then says, “This has been a truly terrible couple of days.”

“I’m not saying it to be mean, Patrick, I’m saying it because, like—”

“Because I’m such a pathetic loser that I should just fucking follow Pete Wentz around for the rest of my life and hope he never grows tired of me because I’m dependent on him for _everything_?”

“No,” Vicky says sharply. “That’s not at all what I’m saying. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying you’ve been looking for something, the whole time you’ve been here. You _came_ here looking for something. You didn’t know what it was, but it was _something_.”

“You think I was looking for the world’s most eligible bachelor?” drawls Patrick sarcastically.

“I think you _weren’t_ looking for a record store. So maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea of another fresh start.”

Patrick breathes for a second. Patrick thinks of the way he felt in that hotel room, out of his depth, raw and open, hurting and terrified. “I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore,” Patrick admits. “And I’ve never really felt that way. I thought I knew… I thought I _knew_. But he sees me differently, as someone who…” As someone who could catch the attention of the world’s most eligible bachelor, Patrick thinks. As a superstar in his own right. And Patrick doesn’t get that, never saw himself that way, has always thought he _should_ be hiding, in the background, behind the scenes. Pete is dragging him kicking and screaming into the spotlight, and Patrick doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“Think about it,” Vicky says as she leaves.

Patrick doesn’t exactly know what she means by that.

But he thinks about, well, everything. For a really long time.

And then he picks up his guitar.


	45. Chapter 45

Pete leaves London early. He can’t stand it there another second. He nails all of his scenes and puts his foot down against Butch’s desire for retakes, just throws a little tantrum and gets his way. To be honest, everyone’s staying out of his way, even Bebe. He’s so snappish, nobody wants anything to do with him.

Andy looks like he doesn’t get paid enough.

“I’m going to Chicago,” Pete announces as they’re leaving for the airport.

“Huh?” says Andy.

“You heard me.”

“What are we doing in Chicago?”

“ _I’m_ going to Chicago. You’re going to L.A. and shutting the house up, putting it on the market. You’re going to have Gabe call me to see what we can do about _Folie_.”

Andy, after a moment, smiles at him. That’s not exactly the reaction Pete expected, but it’s nice. He says, “Are you going to finish this movie?”

“Yeah,” Pete nods. “I’m just going to take a weekend in Chicago first. I’ve got the time.”

Pete feels like he’s got nothing but time. Patrick hasn’t called, and Pete doesn’t know if he ever will, and Pete’s future feels… _empty_. But Patrick was absolutely right: Pete is sad and he’s lonely and he isn’t having any fun. He’s the most envied person on the planet, and for _what_? Everybody in the world wants to be Pete Wentz except for Pete Wentz. He’s got to fucking fix that. It starts by maybe clearing his plate and taking a minute or two to fucking _think_. About what he wants out of life. About what he wants to do next. 

So he goes home. He doesn’t know how else to fix it, other than start at the beginning and try again.

He doesn’t break into tears the minute he sees his mother, which is kind of astonishing, because he feels much more heartbroken now than he did then. But he also feels like maybe he has a plan.

“Peter,” she says when she lets him in. She looks at him warily, like she fully expects a nervous breakdown. He doesn’t blame her.

“I fucked things up with Patrick,” he says honestly.

“Oh, honey,” she says softly. “What did you do?”

He talks. He talks like he’s in fucking therapy. He has _no shame_. He says every thought he’s been thinking the entire flight over the Atlantic. “I was so sad and so lonely that I was so desperate to never lose him that I think I may have… I don’t know. I was a little too much, possibly. But here’s the thing. Here’s what I _really_ learned. You can’t ask someone to be in a relationship with you when you’re so unhappy with _yourself_ , like, that’s too much to ask someone to be _that_ , the person who saved Pete Wentz. You know? He doesn’t deserve that, he deserves _more_.” Pete paces around the living room, tearing his hands through his hair. He can’t remember the last time he slept. Or _showered_.

His mother says, “You know you deserve to be happy, right? I am all for you getting happy with yourself, but you shouldn’t think you don’t deserve Patrick. You love so hard, and so well. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Pete snorts derisively, pausing to look at the family photos scattered over the wall, Pete Wentz, the most famous person on the planet, an awkward teenager in braces. “Really? Do I love well?”

“What?” His mother sounds honestly bewildered. “What are you talking about? Pete…”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. He studies his father’s smiling face, thinks of the son his father wanted and the son he got. “I was a bratty, ungrateful kid who made your lives hell.”

“Pete. That’s not true. Have you thought that all this time? You’re a wonderful son.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pete turns away from the photos, waving his hand dismissively. “Sure, I know, now I’m great, it all turned out well, but it would have been nice if Dad could have lived to see, I don’t know, the Golden Globe. You know?”

“Pete.” His mother looks honestly perplexed. “You’ve _always_ been wonderful. I mean, _yes_ , difficult, of course you were difficult, I can’t lie to you about that, but you were difficult because of how wonderful you were, how much you _wanted_ , how much _more_ you were always going to be. People don’t have easy children, Pete. That’s not how you love a child, it’s never _easy_ , kids are their own people and that makes them hard. But we got you. And we always felt fortunate. We were endlessly proud of you, your bravery and determination and stubbornness, good Lord, we could have used a little less stubbornness but look what it _got_ you. I’m glad you’ve been successful, but we always just wanted you to find what you were looking for. All that fierceness, all that passion – we wanted you to find something. Whatever it was. Whatever it was you needed to be happy. That’s all. We always thought you were wonderful. Always. Your father always knew how fantastic you are.”

“I know,” Pete admits achingly. “I do. I know. I just wish he’d known how fantastic I thought _he_ was.”

To his surprise, his mother laughs at him.

Pete blinks.

“I don’t mean to laugh at you,” she says, “because I can see this is bothering you. But I’m sorry, it’s just so preposterous, how you could think for even a second that…what? Your father didn’t know you loved him? _Pete_. Have you really been worrying about this? Your head is a loud and silly place sometimes, and you know it. Cast that anxiety aside. Your father knew you loved him. Honestly, sweetheart, it is very difficult not to know when you are loved by Pete Wentz. You don’t love neatly. And that’s one of the best things about you. So I can’t believe you were too much for Patrick, and if you were, then he definitely doesn’t deserve you, because you need someone who recognizes how precious all your too-much-ness is.”

“That’s…” Pete doesn’t know what to say to that. He swallows a sudden lump in his throat. “That’s really nice of you,” he says inanely, like his mother is an interviewer on a fucking morning show or something.

She cups his cheek in her hand and says, “I’m sorry your head’s been mean to you about all of this.” She kisses his other cheek.

His cell phone rings in his pocket.

“Oh, look,” she says, straightening away from him. “Maybe it’s Patrick.”

It’s not. It’s Shane. “I’ve got to deal with this,” Pete says grimly. 

“Right now?” his mother asks, looking disappointed.

“Yes,” says Pete, answering the call. “But it’s actually a good thing. Shane,” he says into the phone.

His mother makes a face, and he wonders if everyone in his life hates Shane, and why did it take him so long to wake up and realize he shouldn’t be living like this? Pete really, really tries not to let his head label him _pathetic loser_ again, but, well, the evidence seems pretty compelling, frankly.

“Where the fuck are you?” Shane spits at him, as he watches his mother leave the room.

“Yeah, it’s not really relevant,” Pete replies. “I’ve been thinking, and I think you and I should go our separate ways.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Our separate ways? Our _separate ways_?” Shane screeches at him.

“Settle down there, Shane,” Pete drawls, “you’re sounding a little upset.” Really, this is the first time in his entire life that he’s felt more powerful than Shane. It’s odd, he’s the famous one, he should have seen all along how much Shane needed Pete, but Pete always felt—always, always, always—that his fame was Shane’s smoke and mirrors, that if Shane stopped for even a second everyone would see exactly who Pete was and hate him.

And then Patrick stood in front of him and saw exactly who he was and _loved_ him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re _doing_?” Shane demands. “Butch says you—”

“Shane,” Pete interjects calmly. “It’s not relevant. Didn’t you hear me the first time? You don’t have to worry about me and my perpetual disaster anymore. I relieve you of the responsibility.”

There’s another moment of silence. Pete can tell that Shane has no idea how to react to this, how best to try to manipulate Pete back into compliance. “Is this about Patrick?” Shane asks finally, suspiciously.

“Nope,” says Pete.

“Did he give you an ultimatum? Him or me?”

“No. But he should have, because I would have chosen him. But no. This is about Patrick only in that Patrick was the one to ask me why you’re my agent, and you know what, Shane? I didn’t have a good answer for that. You’re a homophobic, bullying asshole, and I really cannot come up with a reason why I have you as my agent.”

“I _made_ you—” Shane seethes.

“No, I did that,” Pete cuts him softly. “I did that. Me.”

There is a much longer moment of silence this time.

Shane says eventually, “Do you really fucking think you’ll be able to—”

“Don’t try me, Shane,” Pete interjects. He is fatally calm, and he can hear how it’s making Shane choke on rage on the other end of the phone. “Or do, because it would be fun to take you down. But if you have an ounce of self-preservation – and let’s face it, you are nothing _but_ self-preservation – you will shut the fuck up and scurry back under a rock and you will not ever contact me or Patrick _ever_ again, we have lawyers for that shit, you don’t come near us. And if I hear even a whisper of a rumor in the future that you caused Patrick to experience even a nanosecond of momentary discomfort, I will _destroy_ you.”

An even longer silence.

Shane starts, “Pete—”

“Good luck finding another Pete Wentz,” Pete says, and hangs up.


	46. Chapter 46

Patrick is packing a backpack with a pair of jeans, some underwear, a few toiletries, and some band t-shirts, because he feels like that’s all he really needs. He’s got his guitar in its case ready to go, his Macbook tucked up under the jeans, chargers in the front pocket, like, he can’t think of anything else he needs. He stands in the apartment and looks around it, shrugs, and reaches out to grab his fedora. He’s just settling it on his head, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, picking up his guitar, when there’s a knock on his door.

“Vicky,” he says when he answers it. “Just the person I was going to look for. Listen—”

“Um,” says Vicky. “I don’t know how to tell you this. But I think there’s a famous person asking for you downstairs.”

Patrick freezes. Well, all of Patrick freezes but his heart, which tries to claw its way out of his throat. “Is it Pete?”

“No,” Vicky says gently. “I would have just said if it was Pete. It’s someone else. Bebe?”

“Bebe! Bebe Rexha? Is here?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Why_?” Patrick can’t imagine why this would be happening.

“Dunno. She just asked if she could talk to you. I can tell her to go if you don’t want to talk to her but I thought maybe you might want to—”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to her,” Patrick says. He steps out of the apartment and locks the door behind him, then tucks his keys into his pocket and goes downstairs with Vicky.

Joe is saying to Bebe, “No, no, I think I saw, like, a few episodes of that.”

“Yeah, nobody watched it over here, I don’t know why. Someone told me the plot about health insurance just didn’t resonate.” She catches sight of Patrick and says warmly, “Patrick.”

“Hi…” Patrick doesn’t know if he’s supposed to call her “Bebe” or “Ms. Rexha,” so he settles for neither and trails off awkwardly. And then says suddenly, “This is Vicky. Have you met Vicky?” Which is stupid because Vicky came to get him.

Bebe gives Vicky what can only be described as a leer. “I have met Vicky. We’re going to get to know each other later.”

Vicky fucking _blushes_ , which Patrick has never seen before, and mumbles something about checking inventory, as if Vicky has ever worked when she could be eavesdropping.

Bebe watches her scurry off, then says to Patrick, “She’s cute. See, I was hoping you had cute friends.”

“Yeah, I mean…” Patrick still doesn’t get why Bebe is here. So he just says again, “Yeah.”

“Listen. I don’t know what happened with you and Pete—”

“What did Pete say happened?”

“Nothing. He just walked around throwing tantrums on set until he got his way, and then fled London, so I assumed something happened, because honestly, he’s usually a pretty easy guy to work with. I just wanted to be like… Look, it’s rough, for people like us, me and Pete, we’re kind of bad at the normal kind of dating a lot of the time, like, he liked you a lot and he was really trying and if he did something, it was probably stupid, and you could… If you could find a way to get past whatever it was, if that’s possible, I kind of can’t think of a sweeter guy, like, girls talk in Hollywood, and he’s a _sweetheart_.”

Patrick feels suddenly close to tears. Which is silly, because he hasn’t cried this whole time, so why should he cry _now_ , when he’s made up his mind and he feels like he knows what he wants? He says, “We said things… _I_ said things…”

“People do.” Bebe shrugs. “Does it matter as much as the things you _didn’t_ say?”

“That’s very wise,” Patrick notes.

“It’s a line in the script, actually, I can’t take credit for it.”

“Oh,” says Patrick.

“But it’s a good line, and a true line.”

“Do you know where Pete’s mom lives in Wilmette?” Patrick asks suddenly.

“Wilmette?”

“Chicago,” says Patrick. “It’s outside Chicago. Do you know?”

Bebe shakes her head. “We never talked about it. But I can get the address for you. Someone will know. Andy, or someone.”

Patrick nods once, settling his resolve into place, and then raises his voice to call out, “Vicky and Joe?”

They both come over, looking curious.

Patrick takes his keys out of his pocket, dangles them ceremoniously, and then lays them on the counter. “I hereby leave you this building.”

“What?” they say in unison.

“It’s yours,” he says.

“Patrick,” says Joe. “It’s _yours_.”

“It did what it needed to do,” Patrick says. “And now I’m giving it to you. It’s a pretty good place to start a relationship with a movie star.” Patrick looks meaningfully at Vicky. “You know, if you need a place for that kind of thing.”

Vicky blushes again.

“Well, hang on,” Joe inserts. “What about me? I want to have a relationship with a movie star.”

“Let’s talk,” says Bebe. “What’s your type?”

Patrick smiles and leaves them to it.

***

Pete sleeps a normal amount of hours, wakes up feeling almost human, lets his mother make him breakfast, and then looks at the backyard and says, “Mom. Where’s the landscaper? What’s going on with those leaves?”

His mother shrugs, unconcerned.

And to be honest, it’s not like Pete’s ever felt a driving urge to make sure yards undergo a fall clean-up before, but he has a sudden vivid memory of his father raking leaves, of a tiny version of himself jumping into piles of leaves that towered over his head, and Pete finds himself knotting an old scarf over his hoodie and raking fucking leaves in his childhood backyard. It’s nice actually. It’s a crisp, clear day, and the sun is shining, and Pete Wentz has a month of acting left and then he can…do something else. Whatever else he might want. Find Patrick and say, _I’m sorry, you’re right, but I think we could have another go, I don’t want to be sad and alone anymore, I want_ you _._ Pete rakes his leaves and writes it out in his head, how it ought to go. He rakes to the tune of “Enter Sandman,” scrunching through leaves in rhythm with the music, mumbling it absently under his breath while he thinks of Patrick.

And then Patrick’s voice says, “‘Enter Sandman’?”

Pete stops raking and whirls around and there is Patrick. _There is Patrick_. He’s wearing a fedora, and a cardigan whose sleeves he’s pulled down over his hands, and he’s got a backpack slung over one shoulder and a guitar case in the other hand, and it’s _Patrick_.

Or Pete is hallucinating.

He doesn’t think he’s hallucinating. He didn’t take a weird combination of medication that morning.

Patrick looks uncertain, unsure, like he shouldn’t be there. Pete doesn’t understand how Patrick could for one second not think he should be exactly there, right there on the patio of Pete’s childhood home, looking so impossibly delicious in all the fall sunshine. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I know this is—”

“No.” Pete drops the rake and shakes his head, rushing up to the patio. “What are you sorry for?” he gasps. He can’t imagine why Patrick should apologize.

“This is a little stalker-y. I’m sorry. I asked Bebe to ask Andy, I… I was afraid you wouldn’t let me come, if I asked, and this is…a sketchy thing to do, I’m sorry.”

Pete shakes his head again. “Why would I tell you not to come?” he asks breathlessly.

“I said…some horrible things—”

“ _I_ said some horrible things,” Pete corrects him. He’s standing in front of him by now, and oh, look, his freckles are exactly the same, there are those kaleidoscope eyes that are always tumbling between blue and green and brown and now, outside in bright Chicago air, they’re even more impossible, how is Patrick more impossibly beautiful here than he had been in London, that shouldn’t be a _thing_. “You were right about everything you said, I—”

“ _You_ were right,” Patrick interrupts him. “ _You_ were right, I have been scared, I’ve been scared a very long time, and I… I don’t know how to stop…being scared…but I feel like maybe…maybe you make me feel brave. Braver. I don’t know.”

Pete stares at him, breathing fast, smiling wide. He says, “I was going to say the same exact thing to you. There’s a possibility we are more than the sum of our parts, you and I.”

“I don’t know if that’s true for you but I know that for me…” Patrick looks at him and says, open and honest and raw, “You see me in this way I’ve never thought of myself before. You talk about me being a star, and I think, like…I think I want that. What you say. This fairy tale you tell me. And you make me think that…maybe that me that you see, that me you think could be a star – maybe he exists. Maybe that person you see in me who you think is incredible exists. I… At least that’s how you make me feel.”

“Yes! You _are_ incredible,” Pete says earnestly.

Patrick blushes, a golden glow in the golden autumnal light. Pete is _enchanted_.

Patrick says, “Um. I’ve got something for you. Like. It’s not great. It needs work. But you know how you’re always saying you need a script? Even though it’s not true, but… I need music. And that _is_ true.”

“I don’t know,” says Pete, “I’m not going to turn down the music, but you’ve been doing pretty spectacularly without the music.”

Patrick rearranges himself, putting his backpack down and getting the guitar out of its case. Pete watches, fascinated.

“Okay, so.” Patrick strums a couple of chords, then clears his throat. “It needs some work still. But. This is for you. I hope you like it.”

Pete wants to say that he already knows that he _loves_ it but Patrick looks so serious and intent that he decides not to interrupt.

Patrick plays another chord, and then Patrick starts singing, his gaze fixed on his guitar. “I just can’t believe I love someone so blue, I’ve made up my mind…” He lifts his gaze to Pete. “I’m out of my mind over you. I can’t believe it’s true, my deep blue love.” He keeps his eyes on Pete, and Pete can’t fucking _breathe_. “We’ve had some good times,” sings Patrick, “we’ve had some bad, but I’d never take a single one back. You’re a special kind of broken heart, and you break me in two. You live like no tomorrow…” Patrick takes a breath and sings, “I want to spend tomorrow with you. From force to fight, from wrong to right, from bloodshot day to sleepless night, please don’t ever stop breaking my heart.”

“ _Patrick_ ,” Pete whispers.

“I know your footsteps,” sings Patrick, “I know your face, I know the smell of your hair when you get out of the shower.”

Pete steps closer to him.

Patrick’s voice catches. “You’re the only kind of love I want,” he half-sings, half-says.

“Patrick,” says Pete, close enough now that Patrick’s stopped playing his guitar, doesn’t have room between them for his hands to fit.

“You live like no tomorrow,” Patrick whispers, his eyes fluttering closed. Pete looks at his ginger eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks. “I want to spend all of my tomorrows with you.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, and kisses him.

Patrick trembles into the kiss, and Pete aches over how badly they managed to break each other, but also how nice it is to get to put each other back together again.

“God, Evanston,” he says into the scant space between them. And then he can’t think of how to articulate all of it. He’s going to need a million journals for this. So he just breathes out, “I am going to make you a fucking star.”


	47. Chapter 47

Pete makes him a fucking star.

Not all at once, of course. Not overnight. Overnight, Patrick sleeps with Pete in his childhood bed, even though he thinks that’s weird, but Pete and Pete’s mom are both insistent, and Pete’s mom is the _sweetest_ , she’s so kind to Patrick all day, so welcoming and genuinely interested in him and his music, and she clearly thinks Pete is the best person on the entire planet and so Patrick already loves her a lot and wants to make her happy, so he stays with Pete in his childhood bed. Pete tries to talk him into a blowjob and Patrick has to hiss at him, “Not in your mother’s house!” and Pete laughs and laughs, his face pressed into Patrick’s neck, shaking against him with mirth, and Patrick shakes his head at how ridiculous he is and clasps him close.

Then they go to L.A.

Pete’s house in L.A. is like a mausoleum. A ten-thousand-square-foot mausoleum. It’s ridiculously big and Pete doesn’t even have an explanation for many of the rooms. “That’s, like, a room,” he says when he gives Patrick a tour. “And that’s a room, too.” Most of them are empty, and Patrick’s footsteps echo after him wherever he goes in the house. It’s an acoustically horrific space. The walls are entirely glass, and the view is of the Pacific Ocean, and Patrick hates it here.

“Do you like L.A.?” Pete asks him one night, curled up close in bed. Pete loves to talk in the middle of the night because Pete is apparently never tired.

Patrick is carding his fingers through Pete’s hair, rubbing his fingertips against Pete’s scalp, because maybe that will soothe him enough to finally fall asleep. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I love it.”

“I’m so happy to know that you’re never going to be able to lie to me about anything,” replies Pete, and he _does_ look happy about that.

Patrick sighs. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s…fine. Your house is beautiful. Everything’s great.”

“It’s okay, I hate it here, too. That’s why I’m selling the place. We’re almost done with the movie, so I wanted to talk to you.”

“What about _Folie_?” Patrick asks. Last he heard, Gabe was negotiating the breach of contract. Patrick’s met Gabe and William. It was a treacherous dinner Patrick was very stressed out during, and at the end William pronounced him _good enough for Pete_ , and really Patrick’s opinion of them rose enormously, because _someone_ should have been realizing that Pete was a catch.

“Taken care of.”

Patrick frowns. “How much did that cost you?”

“As much as it needed to,” Pete replies simply. “Not the point. I made myself miserable for a full decade of my life, I think I can spend some of the money I made then to try to make myself happy now. The point is, we are about to be footloose and fancy-free, you and I. So what do you want to do?”

“What do _you_ want to do?” asks Patrick.

“Move to Chicago and write music with you,” answers Pete.

“Oh,” says Patrick, who somehow, even knowing Pete thought he was going to be big star, had not really thought through how they were going to get there. The idea of it, of holing up somewhere in Chicago with Pete and writing music, punches the breath out of him.

“How’s that sound?” asks Pete, a thread of anxiety in his voice, like maybe it’s not the most spectacular thing Patrick’s ever heard.

“Yeah,” Patrick manages, because he’s so goddamn awful at letting Pete know how amazing he thinks he is. He’ll write him a song later to make up for it. “That sounds fabulous.”

They rent a small apartment near Wrigley. It’s the kind of place Patrick feels like kids rent as their first place in the city, where there are supposed to be four or five people squeezed into the bedrooms, tumbling over each other. There is a persistent mouse problem and Patrick’s pretty sure their bedroom door is nothing more than particle-board that shreds more and more every time one of them so much as touches it.

Patrick fucking _adores_ it.

They live lost in music for days on end, never leaving the apartment. Moving from the couch to the floor and back again is their biggest change in scenery. They order delivery and eat it standing by the kitchen counters. Patrick always has a guitar, and Pete always has a piece of paper and a pen. They fight viciously over everything musical until the day they don’t, until the day they make it click and write a song and Pete smiles and says, “Yeah, that one,” and then goes to get them bowls of cereal and suggests, “Let’s take an Xbox break.”

They live there through a sharp Chicago winter that they never feel, that never touches them. When Patrick tries to remember it later, how it must have snowed and rained, how the days must have been gray and cold, all he can remember is a constant glow they seemed to exist in, the lyrics Pete would mumble into his skin, the snatches of melody Patrick would return to him, there in their bed.

They spend Christmas with Pete’s mom, and New Year’s in London with Vicky and Bebe Rexha, and Joe and Awkwafina, because, yeah, somehow _that’s_ a thing. They have dinner with Verity and Paget and Nigel and Paget only asks about Pete’s kissing technique twice, so Patrick considers it a triumph. They get a postcard from Andy, who is somewhere on the other side of the planet doing a vegan world tour.

On Valentine’s Day Pete takes him to a show at the Metro and they’re recognized but no one bothers them until the show is over, when Pete signs autographs genially and takes selfies and records personal messages on people’s cell phones and it’s the first time in a long time that Patrick remembers that this guy who drives him crazy by eating Reese’s peanut butter cups in bed and just _leaving_ the wrappers there, like, doesn’t he get that they have _mice_ – that guy’s still a movie star, with a movie in post-production, with press he’s going to have to do, with a worldwide following.

The next day there are photos all over the internet, the two of them snuggled close together. In one of the photos, Pete is saying something, his face animated with whatever it is. Patrick is looking at him, and the smile on his face is indulgent, if skeptical.

“That’s my favorite look on you,” Pete says when he sees it, and retweets the photograph, adding to it, _LOOK WHAT A GORGEOUS BOYFRIEND I HAVE <3 <3 <3_

“That is totally embarrassing,” Patrick says, and likes the goddamn tweet because of reasons.

Patrick’s mother calls, with some kind of stumbling apology, and Pete says Patrick doesn’t need to forgive her but also loving is hard and so easy to fuck up, and he says this while he is filling all of the mugs in their apartment with whipped cream because it’s some kind of fucking experiment or something, and how can he say something so wise while doing something so stupid, Patrick loves him _wildly_. He doesn’t forgive his mother really, but he does return her calls. Sometimes. 

In March, on the anniversary of his father’s death, Patrick formally signs the building over to Vicky and Joe, who seem delighted to be bound together in the joint venture. And soon after that, spring slams into Chicago, birds bursting into song overnight, green splashing across the color palette of the city.

Pete throws open the windows to get fresh air in and Patrick is a little resentful. It feels like the intrusion of the rest of the world. Not that they could keep it out forever.

“You can come with me, you know,” Pete says. “If you want to. For all the press. I’d love to have you.”

Patrick knows he should go on the press tour. He still feels awkward and out-of-place in Pete’s world and he needs to get past that.

“And then,” Pete continues, calling to him from the bedroom, where he’s packing, “when we get back, I can book you studio time and you can record some demos.”

Patrick blinks at the reality television show he’s been listlessly watching, sulking over his boyfriend being a fucking movie star. “What?” he yelps. How had he not thought about the fact that all this music was _going_ somewhere?

Pete sticks his head into the living room and frowns. “You are recording demos, Patrick Stump. Get it through your thick head that you have a beautiful voice.”

“We could sell the songs to other artists to sing,” Patrick suggests. They’re good songs. They could definitely sell them.

Pete snorts and goes back into the bedroom.

Patrick fidgets with the guitar on the couch next to him.

Pete comes back into the living room. “Hey, Evanston,” he says, and drops to the floor between Patrick’s legs. “Can I bribe you sexually?”

“I’m offended you think I’m that easy,” Patrick says. He’d probably sound a lot more indignant if he wasn’t already breathless just from Pete unzipping his jeans.

“Yeah, well, your dick’s not offended,” Pete replies.

“God, it’s been so long since we had a conversation about my dick, I’ve missed them so much,” manages Patrick, his hands in Pete’s hair, because, fuck it, he _is_ that easy.

“Christ, what have we been talking about?” Pete asks. “Have we been having _grown-up conversations_? Heaven save us, Patrick, we’ve got to talk about your dick more. Look how much your dick _likes_ it.”

“There’s something wrong with it,” Patrick gasps. “It’s got no taste.”

Pete laughs and says, “I love you so much,” right before he swallows him down.

Somehow, Patrick agrees to record some demos.

And then Pete, back from his worldwide press tour, high on stellar reviews for the movie and his performance, chews out every music producer in the universe until he finds one he says does justice to their songs, and then Patrick fights about every single thing that’s happening because this is his _music_ and he can’t just throw it out there without making sure it’s _the best it can be_.

“It’s the best,” Pete tells him, panting post-orgasm.

“The sex?” Patrick asks.

“No, the music. The sex is pretty good, too.”

“Fuck you,” says Patrick, collapsing next to him.

“I’m trying to pay you a compliment. Two compliments. You just blew my brains out, give me a second.”

“Uh-huh,” says Patrick, and leans over to grab tissues, trying to distract himself, because he _knows_ the music is good, but that’s different from getting himself to _believe_ it.

“The music’s so good, Patrick.” Pete threads their hands together. “ _You’re_ so good.”

“Your words are the only reason anyone’s ever going to listen to the music,” Patrick tells him.

Pete shakes his head at him, smiling. “Okay. When you’re performing at the Grammys, you’ll change your tune on that one. See what I did there? Change your _tune_? Huh?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to perform at the Grammys, Pete.”

“You totally are, Trick. Tell you what: I’ll make you a bet.”

“What’s the bet? That I’ll perform at the Grammys?”

“That you’ll _win_ one.”

Patrick laughs. “Okay, I’ll definitely take this bet. What do I get when I win?”

“What do you want?” asks Pete. He looks oddly serious for this conversation, propping himself up on his elbow.

“An entire week without having to watch that weird show you like with the people running through the obstacle course,” Patrick decides, because that’s the last thing he can remember complaining about.

“Okay, that show is _awesome_ and you’re the one missing out, but okay, I agree to your terms.”

“What do you want on the very slim chance that you win?”

“I want you to marry me,” Pete says.

Patrick stares at him. It’s too bad he can’t say anything since he just _died_. “What?” he manages.

“When you win a Grammy, we’ll get married,” says Pete.

Patrick struggles to sit up. “Hang on— _Pete_ —”

“Look, don’t make a big thing out of it,” Pete says quickly, desperately, “like, you just said, it’s a longshot, it’s probably not going to happen, it’s—”

“No, wait, shh,” says Patrick, trying to cut him off. “Do you want to get married?”

There’s a moment of silence. “I mean,” says Pete.

This is the most Pete way to propose, Patrick thinks. Pete was always either going to go enormous on the proposal, rent out the Eiffel Tower or something, or he was going to do it like this, on a random night in sex-dirty sheets, trying to bury it as a joke so he could pretend his heart wasn’t so caught up in it.

“I agree to this on one condition,” Patrick decides.

Pete looks at him expectantly.

“That, when I don’t win a Grammy, we revisit this topic anyway.”

Pete, after a second, nods.


	48. Chapter 48

Patrick seems amazed when his album drops and it’s a hit. He doesn’t seem to understand how he’s suddenly playing morning shows and late-night, how he leaps from tiny venues to midsized overnight. Patrick is bewildered, and Pete has no idea why, because he knew all along, he kept _saying_ it: Patrick was made to be a star.

“If I’d met you when we were kids,” Pete says to him confidently, on a tour bus somewhere in Nebraska, “I’d’ve made you a star way back then.”

“Uh-huh,” Patrick says drily, like Pete’s wrong about that. “That would have been enough for young Pete? Someone else’s fame?”

Pete considers seriously, struck by the question. “Maybe,” he decides. “If it was yours.”

“Are you bored?” Patrick asks suddenly. “If you’re bored, following me around and doing this, I’d totally get it. You keep getting sent scripts, you could take one.”

Pete shrugs. “I would, if any of them grabbed me. They haven’t. Anyway, I’m a lyricist now. You’re going to win me a Grammy.” Pete thinks about the fucking Grammy bet literally _every goddamn day_. He wonders if Patrick does.

From the weight of Patrick’s gaze on him whenever he brings it up, he thinks he does. It’s odd, like they’re pre-engaged only they’re both pretending they’re not. Pete doesn’t know why he chose to do it in this weird, stupid way, except that that seems like exactly a Pete Wentz thing to do.

Patrick replies, “That’s right, those lyrics are the only words that matter these days,” and Pete smiles at him.

But the thing is – the day that Patrick is nominated for the Grammy – the day that _they_ are nominated for the Grammy – Pete sits scrolling the Peterick tag on Twitter and thinking, _What if. What if_. And he feels like Patrick is thinking the same thing.

Patrick crawls into bed next to him and mumbles, “Hey, Wilmette. Guess what?” and kisses the side of his throat.

“What?” asks Pete, putting his phone aside and turning to him.

“I just got asked to perform at the Grammys.”

Pete laughs. “I _told_ you.” And then he wonders if he should have made that the bet after all. They’d be for-real engaged if that had been the bet. Well. For-real bet-engaged. Or something. “What are you singing? ‘Grand Theft Autumn’?”

“I’m singing ‘Deep Blue Love,’” Patrick says. “I kind of put my foot down about it.”

Patrick really can put his foot down, when he wants to. Pete’s learned that over the past year.

So Patrick sings “Deep Blue Love” at the Grammys. This is his encore song at his concerts, and every time, before he sings it, he says, _This one is, as always, for Pete_. He says it now at the Grammys, sitting alone on a stool on the stage, just him and his guitar, leaning close to the mic. “This one is, as always, for Pete.”

Pete knows he’s probably on camera at that moment but Pete doesn’t care. Pete listens to Patrick sing him his song and feels the way he did when Patrick sang it to him in his mom’s backyard: like they can do _anything_ together.

They win a Grammy together. Pete – Pete Wentz, who last stood on a stage like this at the Golden Globes for acting – he wins a _Grammy_.

Patrick shakes his head when Pete gestures to the microphone, deferring to him.

Pete can’t help but smile. They probably should have discussed how they were going to accept their Grammy, but they didn’t, because Patrick thought they weren’t going to win, and honestly, whenever they discussed the Grammys, they were both really thinking of the bet. So Pete steps forward without a script.

He starts with, “I would like to thank Butch Walker for being such a detail-oriented director that I had time to fall in love with a musician while we were filming our movie, he’s probably the most responsible for this Grammy.” Which earns him some laughter. “And Patrick. Patrick who did the actual, you know, music-writing and lets me scribble at him, thank you, Patrick.” Pete flickers his eyes sideways to Patrick, who’s frowning thoughtfully at his Grammy. Pete decides he can’t get caught up in wondering what Patrick’s thinking, so he shifts quickly back to the crowd. “And, you know, all of you for voting for us and all of you for listening to us and our producer, who put up with so, so much, sorry.” Pete leans away from the microphone to whisper to Patrick, “Are you sure you don’t want to—”

Patrick surprises him by stepping firmly past him and up to the microphone. “This is, as always, for Pete,” he says, and then looks at Pete. “Guess you win the bet.” The crowd laughs at them. Patrick smiles at him. Pete is…dizzy.

He’s happy he gets off the stage without fainting, through the photo call, through the inane questions that are never about the songwriting process and instead are about if Pete’s ever going to make another movie and Pete literally says, “ _Now_ with this, guys? Really? I just won a _Grammy_ ,” and waves it around.

“They’re the worst,” Pete says to Patrick in the limo on the way back to the hotel. The L.A. house was long ago sold, and Gabe and William offered to let them stay with them, but Pete didn’t want to have to deal with other people if they lost (and despite his professed confidence, he’d kind of thought there was a really good chance they would lose).

“Who?” Patrick asks absently. He’s been quiet since they won, and even though he smiled so brilliantly at Pete when he said he won the bet, Pete can’t help but think that it was a stupid way to get engaged and maybe Patrick doesn’t actually want to marry him.

He should probably say that: _We don’t have to get married_. Like, a brave man would say that, right? Pete is not brave. Not even a little. He says instead, “The press. Asking about the movies. This was your moment and I’m sorry.”

“Pete.” Patrick gives him a quizzical smile. “Do you think for even a second I don’t know that this is my moment? Look.” He lifts the Grammy up. “ _Look_.”

Pete smiles at him. “I told you,” he says.

“I’m going to give you thirty seconds to be smug,” Patrick says, “starting now,” and then he pulls Pete in for a kiss.

“Oh, not fair,” Pete mumbles when he comes up for air. “You spent the whole thirty seconds occupying my mouth so I couldn’t talk.”

Patrick chuckles and kisses him again.

They trail through the lobby, hand-in-hand, Pete undoing his bowtie and wondering what Patrick’s fucking _thinking_. They turned down every after-party invitation, and Pete’s really fucking glad they did. Maybe they’ll just go up to the room and have sex and not have an awkward conversation about maybe possibly getting kind of married.

The room, when they get there, is flooded with roses.

“Oh, wow,” Pete says, walking in and staring at them. “Do you think the hotel does this for all the winners—” He stops talking, because when he turns to look at Patrick, Patrick is on one knee holding a ring up at him. “What the fuck,” Pete whispers.

“Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III,” Patrick says, “would you like to marry me?”

“What?” says Pete.

“Um,” says Patrick, tipping his head and glancing at the ring, like maybe he wasn’t clear.

“No. Hang on.” Pete, shaking his head, drops to his knees to be on Patrick’s level. “You don’t have to do this. It was a stupid bet, I’m not going to trick you into marrying me, you don’t have to—”

“Pete,” Patrick says, “if I didn’t want to marry you, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I? The truth is, this year has been the most ridiculous year of my life, and I can’t wait to see what absurdity you have up your sleeve next, like, I can’t _wait_ , I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life being taken aback by you, I can’t imagine a better life. Forget about the bet. This isn’t about the bet. I was doing this either way. The florist set all this up as soon as we left for the ceremony. You were getting your romantic proposal, Wentz, whether we won or not, because I _love_ you and also this is how your character proposed in _Cork Tree_ so I thought maybe you might be fond of it.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, awestruck, amazed, how did he get _so fucking lucky_. “Jesus fucking Christ, _Patrick_ ,” he says, and launches himself onto Patrick, toppling him over onto the hotel room floor. “We are never going to top tonight.”

“Oh, come on,” Patrick says, grinning at him. “You’re Pete Wentz. I’ve got faith in you.”


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. So. 
> 
> The world's a very different-looking place than it was when I wrote this fic and when I started posting it. So I want to thank all of you for coming along for a ride that feels weirder than I intended. For a long time in March and April and May I couldn't really write at all and the only thing that felt like even slightly normal was sitting and posting chapters of this fic and reading lovely comments and responding to lovely comments. So thanks, all of you, for being my land of hugs when everyone else had to keep their distance. Hugs right back at you.

“Look at you,” Pete says, startling him.

Patrick glances at him. Pete is wearing a slim, pretty gray suit and Pete is never going to be anything but earth-shatteringly pretty, Patrick thinks. “Look at _you_ ,” he counters. “I thought this was bad luck, seeing each other before the wedding. That’s why we couldn’t sleep together last night, wasn’t it?”

Pete looks hesitant. “Yeah, but I… I just wanted to make sure I didn’t dream the last two years of my life. So. You seem to be standing here. If I dreamed you up, like, it’s a really _strong_ dream and I can just keep living in it. Maybe I’m in a coma.”

“Pete,” says Patrick, smiling at him. “You’re not in a coma. What a thing to say on our wedding day.”

“I’m really kind of sad I didn’t think to have us have breakfast together in the choir loft. Lucky Charms and coffee.”

“It’s romantic enough to be back in this church where Mary Shelley lost her virginity.”

“No, she lost it in the church _yard_ ,” Pete corrects him, “please, get Mary Shelley’s sex life right.”

“Sorry. Sorry, Mary Shelley.”

“He was an asshole,” says Pete, looking distracted.

“The guy she slept with?”

“Hmm,” Pete replies, and reaches out to adjust Patrick’s tie.

Patrick watches him, befuddled. He’s acting weird, and Pete often acts a little weird, but maybe… Patrick takes a deep breath and manages to say, “Look, Pete, if you don’t want to—”

“I want to,” Pete cuts him off swiftly, which is a _huge_ relief. Pete looks fierce and insistent and Patrick trusts him. “No. I _want_ to. I’m here because, I have your something old. And your something borrowed, because I want it back.”

Patrick lifts his eyebrows. He’s got both a something old and a something borrowed, because Pete was so fucking obsessed with wedding superstitions over the past eight months, like, Patrick wouldn’t have dared not to have a something old and a something borrowed. But he doesn’t say that, because Pete is holding something out to him, a bedraggled piece of paper, and Patrick takes it and opens it up, looking at his own handwriting.

_I don’t stalk you, so I don’t know how you take your coffee_.

Patrick smiles, thinking of a bewildering morning so very long ago, of a drop-dead gorgeous guy unexpectedly sound asleep in his bed. Patrick’s life remains bewildering but the drop-dead gorgeous guy is always expected in his bed now. “You kept it,” Patrick says.

“I wanted you to know that I knew the first goddamn night, Patrick. Like. I _knew_. I’ve had that note ever since, because you wrote me that note and I fucking knew that I was going to love you until the day I died. But I didn’t think I’d ever get to marry you, so in case I forget to tell you later, in case I fuck up the vows and stuff, I want you to know that you gave me a happier story than I would have written in my own script, and I can’t ever thank you enough. I took that note that morning because I thought you’d be my favorite what-if, my best I’ll-never-know. And instead you just turned out to be _mine_ , like, I’d never have imagined that, Patrick. So thank you. Okay? I just wanted to say thank you.”

Patrick stares at him, at his wide golden eyes, at the earnest set to his mouth. “Pete,” Patrick says, and then doesn’t know what else to say. And then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his own bedraggled piece of paper, handing it across to Pete.

Pete’s handwriting, scrawled on the paper. _I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive (now I only waste it dreaming of you)_.

Pete reads it and laughs, fond and full of relief – like Pete might really have thought, even after all this time, that Patrick hadn’t been feeling it right back – and tucks the notes in his pocket.

Later, after the wedding, they frame their two notes and hang them over their bed. Every night they end their days under the reminders of how everything began.

***

They call him Q.

Well, they call him Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz IV, because Patrick insists and when Patrick insists on things, Pete knows to choose his battles. He thinks it’s a ridiculous name for such a tiny baby, but he also thinks of his dad, Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz II, who’ll never get to meet this little one, and yeah, Pete thinks maybe the name is okay. The name is shortened to Quattro, and then to Q, and that’s where it sticks. Q.

Q looks like Pete, the dark curls of his hair, the amber eyes. Patrick says that is everything he hoped for when he won the coin toss and therefore the right to demand that they use Pete’s sperm to father the child. Pete sulked over losing the coin toss at first, complained a lot over the fact that they weren’t going to have a ginger-haired baby with actual _talent_ , because naturally if he’d won he would have demanded they use Patrick’s sperm.

But then Q is born. And Q is _perfect_. Q, Pete thinks, is a _genius_.

Joe says Q isn’t a genius, he’s just a baby and Pete is biased, and somehow Joe is qualified to give this opinion because now he’s dating Rebel Wilson and she’s super-smart. Andy says Joe is definitely wrong and Q definitely is a genius.

When asked his opinion on Q’s genius, Patrick replies worriedly, “Do you think we feed him enough vegetables?” because that’s just how Patrick is.

Pete loves Q more than he thought he could love anything in the universe. It’s fierce and startling and he can’t help it. Pete’s life has been miraculous since the night he stepped into Patrick’s record store, and Q is just another facet of it. When Q starts talking, he starts singing, all of the songs that Patrick sings to him unceasingly, and Pete listens to the pair of them do baby harmonies, while he tries to work on this novel he’s supposed to be writing, off and on, in the middle of lyrics and oh, yeah, a little indie film Bebe talked him into with a promise that it would be lowkey because Vicky’s pregnant and Bebe’s a homebody these days, too.

Patrick tours in support of the next album. He convinces Pete to play bass on stage with him sometimes, although Pete is very content to just let Patrick shine. He still attracts too much attention, he feels, when he’s next to Patrick. But Patrick never seems to mind and just shows him off.

And Patrick always ends the shows with “Deep Blue Love.”

Pete stands in the wings and watches as Patrick leans toward the mic. “This one is, as always, for Pete.”

Q is sleepy in Pete’s arms, head snuggled on Pete’s shoulder. The tour is ending in L.A. When this show is done, they’ll fly to Chicago, where a surrogate is in the last weeks of helping them have a baby girl. Patrick’s sperm, this time, to Pete’s delight; he cannot wait to have a Patrick-baby to spoil the way he watches Patrick spoil their Pete-baby (Pete never spoils Q, _obviously_ ). Pete and Patrick have been sparring over baby names. Pete still thinks they should name her Miracle, because she is one, but Patrick’s probably going to win with his choice of London, which Pete can’t really argue with. The movie’s in post-production and the tour is done and the Stump-Wentz household will shut down the promotional machine, will go into nesting mode, will wait for Miracle or London or London Miracle (this is what Pete in his heart of hearts thinks they’ll settle on, if he can convince Patrick not to cringe over the earnestness of it), will watch _Blue’s Clues_ with Q and write together because they can’t help it, they do it like breathing.

“I want to spend all of my tomorrows with you,” Patrick is singing on stage. That was his wedding vow, too. All of their tomorrows.

Q curls his fingers into the collar of Pete’s t-shirt. They’re sticky with an unidentifiable substance. Pete wrinkles his nose and tries to remember what Q could have on his hand. Maybe he shouldn’t think about this too hard.

“I used to be the world’s most eligible bachelor, kid,” Pete tells his son. “I gave it all up for this glamorous lifestyle here.”

Q seems unimpressed. “Is Daddy almost done?” he whines into Pete’s neck. His face is sticky, too. A lollipop, Pete thinks. He thinks it was a lollipop.

“Almost,” Pete promises him, and the audience roars applause, and on-stage Patrick bows, and waves, and then turns and smiles at Pete and walks over to him. He kisses Q’s head. He kisses Pete’s lips.

And then, together, they all head home.

_fin_


End file.
